and now for something completely different...

[MarkHaysHarris777]

We have a saying in Minnesota, appropriate for your title, "That's different!"

This is a cool chip; and if you're comfortable with the BASIC interpreter and a 3 volt system (believe it or not, it could be an engineering nightmare) I think it might be a fun platform to work with. This is in some ways not any different than purchasing your own ATMEGA328 chip and building your own Arduino board... only you have to provide all of the supporting hardware (power supply, USB controller, analog-to-digital converters. The 3v system is a fit from an engineering standpoint because most stuff (like LCD displays) are 5v, and you have to go through hoops to get it to work without burning the chip. The BASIC interpreter is the main hurdle; limits what libraries you can use, and has a pretty high overhead (not to mention s l o w ).

If you want to build your own board, go with the atmega328 and start from there... its a great AVR and programming it is easy, you don't need BASIC.

PS. Kids are learning to 'sketch' on the Arduino boards, which I find funny. They can do it 1) because nobody is telling them they can't, and 2) because the engineers in Italy are calling it 'sketching'... its actually software engineering with C++/ !! The kids are having no difficulties learning how to 'sketch'. Isn't that a hoot?

Cheers,
marcus