Program run switch

[retrolefty]

Sorta the opposite extreme from arduino.
switches, LEDs, ethernet, switches, accelerometer, potentiometer...)
The Atmel "butterfly" has similar problem...

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Interesting. I always thought that a board designer would be doing a great favor for us end users if all the on-board stuff had a way to be disconnected or isolated from the micro's I/O pins, so that all I/O pins could be 'taken over' and used by the end user via connector strips or sockets. This could easily be done with jumpers or dip switches, but would take up a lot of space I guess.

Lefty

[dimkasta]

Well that is the difference between a development board and a demo/evaluation board.
The development board should be minimal on its peripherals to allow for easily hooking whatever everyone needs to work on his code.
The evaluation boards should have most the peripherals that they can fit on its board, so that users can try how the environment works with them.
But that is completely different than having a small button hooked up on a pin.

I think that a general purpose button on lets say pin 12 would be very useful for fast prototyping and really easy to implement on the same pcbs. In fact, it can be easily designed to be easily ignored by making the pin available on the headers.
A normally off button is electrically neutral when not pressed, so if you don t need it, you can always hook whatever you want on its header outlet and just ignore it.

We can always do it on our own anyway, but we could do it with the led as well, even without having to sacrifice pin 13 for good.
Plus with the button, we won t be sacrificing anything besides some space on the pcbs, as I explained above.

[Aklem]

YES the last post is a person who "gets" what im talking about!
Just for fast prototyping and, if your like me, general projects.

[pluggy]

If you think theres a market, get some boards knocked up in China and sell 'em.  Call it the "Aklemduino".  Or make one on a piece of stripboard with a switch on pin 12.  

You're still going to be stuck with prototyping on a breadboard, because there isn't that much you can do with a single switch and a LED. Ooh look, the light flashes faster when I press the button........  

The lack of a switch and an extra jumper wire on the bread board isn't going to save much time or effort

I'm in the 'decent compromise' camp  

[Nachtwind]

hm, a general purpose button on one of the pins would be interestering yet totally useless in my opinion.
It is useful as long as one is doing breadboard prototyping, but it become overfluent the moment one sees that adding a button to the breadboard works fine as well, especially as it as a nicer size and is better to push. (Buttons small enough to fit the current form factor ara a PITA in my opinion).
Once you move from Breadboard to prototype board (protoshield.. whatever) you will have to miss that one anyway as it is obscured by the platine - so you would have again to go for it yourself.

Now with a button to start or stop a program you would have to change the bootloader (which would render it perhaps incompatible to ALL other Arduinos arround) or would have to build a software change into setup() or main() - which is completely the same as putting one's own button on the breadboard. So where would one gain anything by it?

[Aklem]

What about someone devoloping something like a wiichuck Adapter? It is made to go directly in the arduino and you would have to get a breadboard, a switch, a resistor and a debouncing cap jist to tpggle something. See what i mean? For someone like ME who sees the constant need to test components quickly.