It started with Arduino for me, which led me to Adafruit, who has gone on to make their own Open Source Hardware and the Circuit Python platform. The scene now is multi-vendor and very healthy, but I'll admit I stopped using Arduino when it was very hard to get a genuine one... which I think is a solved problem by buying direct now.

Adafruit has done to Arduino what Arduino did to Wiring. Adafruit is pushing it's own custom python called 'Circuit Python' for it's new hardware so there is no Arduino code examples to go with thier products anymore which is a big disaster.

We should stick to standard Arduino code that should run on all compatible Arduino devices.

> We should stick to standard Arduino code that should run on all compatible Arduino devices.

Why should the entire hobbyist hardware space be an Arduino monoculture?

IMO the Arduino proto-language and framework are quite mediocre and it's time to move on. For beginners, embedded hardware has gotten much more powerful and more familiar languages can be employed. For more advanced users and larger projects, using a real RTOS with a real task system unlocks development velocity in a huge way.

I don't really love CircuitPython, but I don't see how this is comparable to the Wiring/Arduino situation, nor do I really see it as a step backwards.

The thing that bothers me about CircuitPython is that it’s unnecessarily fragmenting the ecosystem just for the gain of its creators. MicroPython was already around when it came about and it offers very little beyond what MicroPython already offers.

Arduino created the ecosystem, and while I agree it’s definitely a problematic way to approach things, I don’t really see a replacement for it in the C/C++ space currently. Using something like PlatformIO, which is almost objectively better from a developer perspective, is IMO not what I would consider a replacement. My hope is that eventually embedded Rust will have something beginner friendly like what Arduino offers but I don’t even see the nascent beginnings of something like that currently.

I lost respect for Adafruit after their data leak and they announced they would not be emailing their customers to notify them about the data leak. Although they later changed their mind after people criticised their decision.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/adafruit-disc...

Adafruit appears to still be supporting the Arduino IDE and ecosystem with their new boards.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2022/04/20/new-guide-adafruit-esp3... "Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino."

Switching to PlatformIO is a nice way to go if you want a more sane version of Arduino package management.

quasi-python is a lot easier for beginners than quasi-C imo

Remember that Arduino is OSHW so clones & alternate implementations are everywhere at far lower cost. You're better off starting with a Black Pill or ESP32 based unit these days anyway. The overall ecosystem and common framework is far more valuable than any individual piece of hardware.

I have an Uno, but I've moved away from Arduino because an Uno costs as much as a Raspberry Pi. Granted, they serve different purposes, but now there's the Pi Pico for $5.

Nothing against the Arduino folks; they really opened up a great avenue for exploration. But it doesn't seem cost-competitive at the moment.

Have a look to Arduino "inspired" other boards, then. The ESP8266 comes to mind which brings onboard WIFI for around $5 or less and is probably a great start into anything IOT-like.

Thanks. I do have an ESP32 board with an integrated OLED display in the Tupperware bin I've stuffed with microcontroller-related gadgets that I'm going to get to "any day now."

Now we need the FPGA equivalent. The FPGA industry is still very much stuck in what was the pre-GNU era of software

There are! I've used the fomu and the tinyfpga, both with the open source stack.

(In the past I've tried running the commercial products under WINE, like most people did at the time, and it worked but was definitely terrible.)

The commercial products run on Linux just fine, in particular Xilinx tools do for sure.

Look at MisterFPGA they are doing a lot of cool stuff to make fpga a bit more mainstream with emulating game consoles, https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html

I keep seeing this sentiment on HN-are fpgas something hobbyists actually get much value from? Do hobbyists learn Boolean algebra and know how to do things like design state machines from standard logic and rom? Programming in HDL is fundamentally different from C++ or Python.. I just don't get the allure of fpgas from amateurs who don't need to use them for work.

Hobbyist is not a skill level designation. It means someone is doing a particular activity for fun, typically not associated with a business.

There are hobbyist who wire up an LED, make it blink and get immense satisfaction out of that. There are also hobbyist who putter around with a scanning electron microscope in their shed, and everything in between.

There are hobbyist who learn the things you mention and more.

> Programming in HDL is fundamentally different from C++ or Python..

Ok? And cheese making is fundamentally different from radio astronomy. Yet there are hobbyist pursuing both.

> I just don't get the allure of fpgas from amateurs who don't need to use them for work.

Let me give you an example. One summer when i was younger I have found a Xilinx Spartan dev board in a dusty bin in our hackspace. Nobody around me did know anything about it, it was probably a donation originally. I spent about two weeks playing with that thing. The most advanced stuff I ever got working was some example code found on the internet which synthetised a pong game through a vga connector. It was generating the video signal through just turning its outputs on and off in the right patterns. That was total magic to me. I spent the time understanding every line of the code and modifying it to do different things. I was goofing off, learning about tech, and having a great time.

I’m not saying this is the only way to enjoy an FPGA, but it certainly illustrates that hobbyist can get value out of one.

Embedded C + Assembly + datasheet + custom startup code + custom dev board --> became Adruino

HDL, Logic Gates, State machines + custom startup code + blah blah blah --> became ???

GP is looking for "???" to materialize.

I think as microcontrollers have become more powerful, the number of things that can be done without FPGA's keeps expanding.

With that said, I'm learning FPGA's using TinyFPGA just to add it to my tool box.

I dunno, Vivaldi is quite good. Or did you mean open source? In which case I 100% agree. Still full of tools that are only usable by masochists and the people that wrote them.

> Vivaldi is quite good

You mean Vivado?

No really, the four seasons!

So many tv commercials can’t be wrong

Err yes oops!

The magical part of Arduino isn't hardware with the Arduino branding, but a great set of open source core libraries & a easy to use toolchain.

This hardware unfortunately doesn't have either of that; it requires Intel Quartus for design and synthesis.

The Vidor is unusable garbage. Arduino's tools provide no support whatsoever for FPGA development on the board -- they haven't even clearly documented the process for uploading a new bitstream to the FPGA. For all intents and purposes, the FPGA is an expensive toy you can use to run their demo bitstream, and that's it.

The Arduino IDE is used to support programming your soft core arduino and its peripherals!

It’s been around for awhile now… more than a decade

https://papilio.cc/

Papilio is pretty thoroughly dead. The boards have been out of stock for years, and Xilinx ISE doesn't even run on Windows 11.

Fine. The parent comment was waiting for the day Arduino-level-ease would arrive for hardware design.

Ok, so it came and went. A decade ago.

Yes - someone make something for macOS/linux that’s actually usable

It's really impressive for a technology that started out as a student project to bring cheaper microcontrollers to younger students.

A student project where the student was booted out, no less: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212021

Another circle of hell missed by Dante