"8.2 User shall not:
- translate, decompile or reverse-engineer the Platform, or engage in any other activity designed to identify the algorithms and logic of the Platform’s operation, unless expressly allowed by Arduino or by applicable license agreements; or
- extract or make copies of the information contained in the Platform (except with respect to Content owned by other users), make derivative works from the Platform, reuse the Platform, or make any other use of the Platform other than as set forth in these Terms or as permitted by applicable law."
Does anyone really want to use an "open-source" maker/tinkering platform with such egregious rules against tinkering?
Arduino is the platform, not the website.
From the same terms and conditions, in the first 2-3 paragraphs where they define the terms:
"The use of the Arduino Platform and the Services (each as defined below) available on, from, or through Arduino.cc (“Site”) ..."
"By using the Site, the Platform, or the Services, you declare to have read and accepted ..."
"If you are under 18 years of age, you may use the Site, the Platform, and the Services only with the consent and supervision of your parent or legal guardian."
" ... and to further develop the Arduino open source ecosystem (collectively, the “Platform”). The use of the Site, the Platform, and the Services is governed by these Terms ... "This is the definition of “platform” in that document. It is just the websites.
That said, check out Section 11 in the US Store Terms & Conditions [1] - similar restrictions appear to apply to the Arduino hardware and software, not just the website.
"Customer agrees that it shall not directly or indirectly: (i) modify, enhance, adapt, translate, make improvements to, create derivative works based upon, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer, reduce to any human or machine readable form, or circumvent any technological measure that controls access to or permits derivation of the source code of, the Software or any part thereof; (ii) reverse engineer the Products, any part thereof, or any composition made using the Products; (iii) rent, lease, sell, transfer, assign, or sublicense the rights granted hereunder, except in connection with the rental, lease, sale or transfer of the entire Product; (iv) copy any part of the Software except for one (1) complete copy thereof for archival and/or back-up purposes, or as otherwise expressly authorized by Arduino in writing; (v) change, distort, or delete any patent, copyright, trademark, trade name, service mark, logo or other proprietary notices which appear in writing on or in a Product (or in any copies of Software); ..."
Later in court: it wasn't me! It was my agent. LLM agent
Is the long range in the room with us? It is I2C not very well known for long ranges. Especially with motors and electric drives and their EMI I2C is not the best decision.
From the title I was more in "Oh, what type of long range wireless they have opted for?" and didn't expect I2C.
For long range wired I would consider more a RS485 or CAN. Short ranges like in a small robot arm, a small car, and alike I2C maybe enough.
It's so much nicer than I2C in so many regards: much longer range, masterless (any node can talk directly to any other node), packet prioritization built-in, deliberately designed to be more or less impossible to wedge, possible to do IC-to-IC on a board without transceivers by using a shared open-drain bus (like I2C, but with only one wire!)... and plenty more.
Really the only downside to CAN is that the spec requires timing that's tight enough that everything has to have a crystal on board. Ah, to have an alternate reality where CAN's timing requirements were relaxed enough for that not to be a requirement and it had caught on as the IC-to-IC interconnect standard instead of I2C...
That's the nice thing about CAN: every node is equal, and every node can send a message whenever it wants. As far as I know, LIN doesn't do that: you have one node on a given LIN network that initiates all communication, much like I2C, and the most other nodes can do is reply.
It's fine for what it is, of course, it's just missing some things that I think make CAN really neat.
EDIT: I was hoping for HaLow WiFi!
This thing should be called what it is: an I2C multiplexer. Such things are not new.
But the boards and modules just seem to be getting ever more complex, with lots of tiny SMD components, removing that path.
Not to mention that both factory made custom PCBs and pre-assembled PCBs are cheaper than ever nowadays.
Adafruit sells breakout boards for various SMT packages so that with a little solder reflow work you can adapt that shiny new chip to your breadboard. https://www.adafruit.com/category/475
The factories willing to do SMD mixed with through-hole high-power electronics is shrinking. However, package constrained power dissipation limits on SMD technology is real.
Depends on what your firm builds. =3
It is just the time-honored maker tradition of finding a cool IC and building a dev board around it for the hobbyist. There’s a i2c multiplexer chip, an i2c buffer, and a nicer motor driver.
Article title is nonsensical.
In general, it depends what you want out of the ecosystems. For quickly setting up a proof of concept, an Arduino used to be good for the exhaustive documentation, examples, community, and labs.
The modern Arduino integrated product line is now similar to other locked ecosystems like FPGAs. It no longer lets students learn by burning out $10 parts they made. The only people having fun now are the folks building those trademarked modules.
Probably wise to avoid LLMs if you are a student, and check out the $6 Pi Pico 2 if interested in low-level firmware build processes (it also supports the old Arduino IDE if you get stuck.)
Best of luck =3
Lab:
https://learn.adafruit.com/using-raspberry-pi-pico-pico-2-wi...
Pico 2:
https://www.mouser.com/en/new/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-pico...
https://www.mouser.com/en/ProductDetail/Raspberry-Pi/SC1632?...
Breadboard and common components to build and blink LED lights (set everything at 3.3v to start exploring):
https://www.amazon.com/EL-CK-002-Electronic-Breadboard-Capac...
AI has absolutely crushed the barrier to entry for using this gear. It's a spectacular turn of events and I suspect sales have never been better, if my own behavior is any indication.
Arduino ships an STM32 which is really feature rich btw.
I really can't get over how many things in life do not require an OS but people used them anyways because it's easier to develop on.
Sure, now people can make more frequent dangerous assumptions with twice the overconfidence. =3
Python is great in many ways, but anything with a garbage-collector or JIT has fundamental problems with parallelism and or real-time environments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_domain_crossing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability_(electronics)
I would never claim to know what I am talking about, but reliance on other peoples hobby projects can inject naive/unstable dependencies into your long-term work.
This list of rules applies to most languages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_10:_Rules_for_Dev...
A bit of history where these rules came from, and why they matter.
"Why Fighter Jets Ban 90% of C++ Features"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv4sDL9Ljww
The basis of the cited 10 rules helped form many standards for reliable code:
https://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf
Good luck, and I agree dealing with bitmap multi-language fonts is difficult without a header template generator. imagemagick can build this for you with a bit of one-time scripting, but it always eats up a lot of rom memory. =3
That type of thinking is like saying unless you can cook a gourmet restaurant quality meal you don't deserve to eat at a gourmet restaurant. Absurd.
(I've since learned, from an LLM, ha ha, how to turn that off if you don't need it.)