Highly Anticipated 32-bit "Due" due When?

westfw:
(also, this is supposed to be using the same structure that has been used in ChipKit (PIC32) for a while now, and more recently for Teensy3.

Actually, for Teensy 3.0 I've been using the 1.0.1 IDE with only very minor tweaks, mostly adding options to boards.txt to change things like "avr-gcc" to to "arm-none-eabi-gcc" and extra options to be given to the compiler and an option specify the toolchain base path. Then I just put a generic arm-none-eabi toolchain in hardware/tools. If anyone's interested to see that modified IDE code, or the ARM-specific core library, just ask.

When they do release another IDE, of course I intend to add support for it.

MichaelMeissner:
Did they announce the important details yet (price, what Arm chip is used as the base, what is the clock speed, what is the power draw, how much memory does it have, how many digital/analog/pwm pins exist)?

The beta test boards given to various developers several months ago had the SAM3X8E chip. Shortly after the Maker Faire in San Mateo, many detailed photos appeared online. Here's a link:

http://robotgrrl.com/blog/2012/05/25/arduino-due-up-close-pics/

The SAM3X8E is pretty amazing piece of silicon. It has about 100 I/O pins (presumably 86 will come to the Mega-form-factor locations), 512k flash, 96k ram, high-speed USB, a fast 12 bit A/D, 2 channel D/A, ethernet mac, and an incredible number of other built-in peripherals. The A/D has 15 channels. There appear to be many PWM pins, some from timers, some from a dedicated PWM generator. The ARM core speed is 84 MHz. The datasheet has some power consumption info on page 1399... basically 76 mA with the core at 1.8 volts, running in the fastest mode.

Of course, this is merely from the chip that was on those boards months ago, not any recent info, but it seems unlikely they'd switch to another chip at this late stage.

Arduino Due is going to be a pretty awesome piece of hardware!

Paul is correct. If I heard correctly, the SAM3X8E is the chip on the Due.

They said it would sell for 49 USD.

It is being shipped to all the regular distributors, so that it will be available to buy on Oct. 22

They said the cause of delay was the wait for the availability of the chip.

LOL, that's the exact same cause for my delays on Teensy 3.0!

Yes the SAM3X8E is a good-looking chip, they did change once before (from the 3U IIRC) but I doubt that would have happened again. I've been looking at the X8E since those photos appeared.

So we do know the chip being used, but nothing else. So apart form giving us a date, something that could be done on a blog or even here on the forum, what was the point of the presentation?

Anyone see it that can explain what was explained?


Rob

I wasn't there. I'd like to go to the NY Maker Faire, but it just isn't in my limited budget.

But I do understand the need to keep the details quiet until official release. Just take a look at what happened with Leonardo. They published (buggy beta) bootloader source and the core with the pin mapping info in October 2010. That said publicly that Leonardo wasn't ready, but pretty soon many people created boards using that info. Most just published photos, cad files, etc, but some started selling them. It wasn't just a matter of a few hobbyists selling a couple extra boards they made. One of those "people" was Sparkfun. Several months before Leonardo released, Sparkfun sold many hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of their "Pro Micro" board, at $25 each, using the buggy bootloader (where the only engineering work on Sparkfun's part was a PCB layout and changing the vendor ID number) and instructed their users to uncomment the lines in boards.txt.

I can also personally identify with trying to balance the desire to inform people vs overly hyping "vapor" products. Even though it's probably profitable to push vaporware, I believe Massimo is a genuinely good person whose actions are guided more by ethics than money. He's had a pretty good history of guiding Arduino in a direction that's good for the community over the long-term, even if the short-term wait for products isn't fun.

It's also got to be a LOT of work running Arduino. Even just PJRC's day-to-day operation gets to be overwhelming at times (believe me, I definitely know that), and Teensy's usage is only a very tiny fraction of Arduino's. I know I've planned to do all sorts of things, but sometimes fallen far short of my goals, simply from a lack of time. Despite their incredible popularity, Arduino isn't a huge corporation. I'm sure it gets very, very busy.

Once it's released, this painful waiting and wondering will probably become a distant memory.

Arduino Due is going to be pretty awesome.

Well, if only they had some sort of blog to post the details they talked about, then people who weren't at the NYC Maker Faire would have a chance to learn about it as well. :stuck_out_tongue:

Far-seeker:
Well, if only they had some sort of blog to post the details they talked about, then people who weren't at the NYC Maker Faire would have a chance to learn about it as well. :stuck_out_tongue:

I dunno, I think it is still vapour-ware. To my way of thinking, an announced product would have specs, pictures, etc. on the company's website. And the companies with even more of a clue will mention the MSRP in the announcements, publish it to the electronics press, and work with distributors so that immediately after the announcement, you can pre-order it. Maybe on October 22nd, it will be a fully announced product, or maybe not. Even if it is announced, we will see what the initial availability is (hopefully better than Raspberry-pi, but who knows).

MichaelMeissner:
Maybe on October 22nd, it will be a fully announced product, or maybe not. Even if it is announced, we will see what the initial availability is (hopefully better than Raspberry-pi, but who knows).

Its already been announced. In fact the reason it isn't out for purchase right now is because they are preparing for a release and the ARM chip that it uses isn't very widely avaliable right now. They said that it WILL be out for purchase on the 22nd. I don't see how you can still think its vaporware.

funkyguy4000:

MichaelMeissner:
Maybe on October 22nd, it will be a fully announced product, or maybe not. Even if it is announced, we will see what the initial availability is (hopefully better than Raspberry-pi, but who knows).

Its already been announced. In fact the reason it isn't out for purchase right now is because they are preparing for a release and the ARM chip that it uses isn't very widely avaliable right now. They said that it WILL be out for purchase on the 22nd. I don't see how you can still think its vaporware.

Where is this so-called announcement on arduino.cc? Yes, it was evidently 'announced' at Maker Faire, but until they actually get around to listing in their hardware pages as an official product (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware), or at least having an entry on the main page that gives the specifications and pictures, it is still vapour-ware IMHO.

This is from another (non Arduino) forum

They talked about changes to the IDE that it will make it easier to add other compilers and platforms to the IDE but I'm not sure what they meant as they didn't go into much detail.
I assume they mean the IDE can be modified to support chipKIT, netduino or other arduino style modules but don't know for sure.
They also mentioned that a version of DUE would have internet embedded in the module with a future release chip. Again not much detail.
They had the designer of the Atmel AVR talk but I fast forwarded through that as it appeared to be an Atmel commercial rather than an Arduino update. That took about half the time.

That's about 500% more that we've heard here or from any official source.

Good to see that the Arduino PR machine is working at full steam.

So according to that there is not a new IDE, just an upgraded IDE. =(

EDIT: Youtube video of the talk posted here

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,113460.new.html#new


Rob

MichaelMeissner:
Where is this so-called announcement on arduino.cc? Yes, it was evidently 'announced' at Maker Faire, but until they actually get around to listing in their hardware pages as an official product (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Hardware), or at least having an entry on the main page that gives the specifications and pictures~~, it is still vapour-ware IMHO~~.

Quoted for emphasis (although I don't personally consider it vapor-ware).

I only consider an announcement official if it's made to the general public through a direct company associated medium. Maker Faire is neither a general public announcement or a direct company associated medium.

Otherwise, I give it marginally better credibility, at best, than rumor.

Look, we need to accept that whatever they DO spend their time doing..

Listening to the average Arduino user or reading "Their" forum isn't it.

I'm not sure where it is but massimo did say in the video that they are going to be updating the website "next week" which is now sometime this week.
Although it was referring to "Arduino at heart", I wouldn't put it past them to wait to update the arduino.cc page for the due.

Massimo mentioned how people got the jump on them with Leonardo. I think they are going to get the Due released and update their hardware information at nearly the same time so that no one makes clones before the original is on the market.

cyclegadget:
Massimo mentioned how people got the jump on them with Leonardo. I think they are going to get the Due released and update their hardware information at nearly the same time so that no one makes clones before the original is on the market.

I completely understand and agree with these concerns. However, none of that prevents them from taking a couple of minutes to link to the World Maker Faire's YouTube video of the "Arduino Hour" on the official Arduino blog. :stuck_out_tongue:

terryking228:
Look, we need to accept that whatever they DO spend their time doing..

Listening to the average Arduino user or reading "Their" forum isn't it.

O so true.
I would add: Not even writing a blog entry ( on the release data of the due; without any technical specifications) for which they declined arduino community help stating they have a full time person assigned ]:smiley:

Best regards
Jantje

Yes they now have a full-time community guy, he introduced himself on the developer's mailing list a few months ago and we've not heard from him since.

I would have thought the Due release and the huge delay would have been a prime example of where such a person is required, to pour a little oil on the rough waters and at least keep us as informed as possible.

I realise and agree with the (perceived) reasons we've not had any technical details, but the total vacuum on the PR front I don't understand. I've now spend a few $100 on LPC stuff and although I may get a Due and port what I've been doing I may not as well. OK no big loss I guess :slight_smile: but how many people have wandered off to other platforms for the want of a few forum posts?


Rob

they now have a full-time community guy, he introduced himself on the developer's mailing list a few months ago and we've not heard from him since.

Michael Shiloh. Part time. As of early July. And I'd say he's been relatively active on the developer and teacher lists since then, mostly in the form of acknowledging suggestions on the developers list, and notably setting up the email list for Arduino "Issue" changes quite quickly after it was suggested.

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,114395.0.html

Perhaps part-time isn't enough. OTOH, I'd suspect that the Due was under a "cone of silence", and "Community Manager" doesn't give him "new product announcement" privileges.

This post on Hack a Day has some more info about the Due:

Thanks for sharing! That post has a link to a pdf with the basic specifications for the Due.