Wednesday, October 31, 2012

I found some Leonardo projects - and they're cool!

I have previously bemoaned that I had not seen many (ok, any) Arduino Leonardo projects.  I have a saying that if you see something once it is cool, if you see it twice, it's a trend.  Via my post on the Raspberry Pi AlaMode board, I saw a post from those folks on an FM radio interfaced with Arduino.  Well tonight I browsed Club Jameco (sad but true) and saw an idea for a sound localization board for Arduino (cool!) and the author is the same as the FM radio author.



Magiciant writes the coolarduino blog.  He's doing some signal processing on Arduinos that is very interesting.  My favorite is a sound localization add-on (above) using 4 electret microphones for x and y axis tracking.  Another is a speech recognition project.  These are things I was investigating with the Raspberry Pi.  Just coincidentally, Adafruit has come out with both a very good electret mic and a mic+amplifier.

Finally, to get better capability, magiciant has migrated his initial designs to the Leonardo, apparently due to input sensitivity and a couple other factors.

This may move my robotic head project forward - I have the head and servos, now to have them do interesting things.

Don't tell Apple, the next Big Thing are Watches

It is all a matter of having the right product at the right time.  IBM with the PCjr Personal Computer, Apple with the Newton iPad.

Innovations in watch making have been consistent throughout the decades.  It can be argued that some of the most precise, artistic mechanical work has come from watchmaking.

In todays Maker era, the watch form factor has been mostly overlooked - the iPod Nano never made it onto many wrists and Apple has changed that form factor again so it isn't small enough.  Fortunately there have been others who are innovating in the watch area, and all come from small Maker companies.

First is the wildly successful Kickstarter campaign for the Pebble watch.  An eInk-based programmable watch, it exceeded it's funding goal by a factor of 100.  It should prove wildly popular when the are released from manufacturing in coming weeks.  And, yes, I'm a supporter (qty 1, Jet Black).  $115 and up


Second is the upcoming Adafruit Watch.  This is an LED pixel watch powered by Arduino.  Again it should be programmable in selection of display, allowing the wearer to personalize their experience. About $30

Finally there are do-it-yourself soldering kit watches from the likes of SparkFun, Adafruit, and others (About $30).  While personalization is not as easy, the I-made-it-myself cred is always fun.

So the future begins again.  It's good to see the small companies up front on this and one hopes that Apple doesn't take notice, buy up what they want, and ruin it all.  It seems there are many folks have already used the iWatch moniker but then again, all it takes is money :(

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

It's a Dog Being 11


And all I got was a lambchop toy, some treats, and lots o' love

Post Hurricane Sandy

The National Capitol Area was hit fairly hard but not quite as bad as places like New Jersey or New York.  We had power out for 19 hours - we were well prepared with food, water, heat (the temperature dropped about 20 degrees after the storm passed).  We had very minor damage to the garage roof by a 10 foot long limb falling from one of our rather large oak trees.

Without power, I haven't been very "plugged in" to the electronic world - "getting back", I did have an email on a sale at Maker Shed.  Two items of note:

As I said the other day, the pressure is on these two items, from the new Arduino Due and the 'duino clone market.  The Leonardo also has the issue that the Maker community does not seem to be publishing a great deal of project designs based on the board.

The Leonardo has spawned some interesting technology though - the concept of having one Atmel microcontroller for the program and the USB controller is gaining traction - several designs have come out and the to-be-released-any-day-now Adafruit FLORA.  So the technology and idea are flourishing much more than the official product from Italy.

Finally, tomorrow is the office Halloween party and pumpkin decorating contest.  I finished my pumpkin during the daylight, lots of electronics - I'll have a Youtube video up for tomorrow.

Monday, October 29, 2012

XCLIP - The Elegance of Mounting Your Raspberry Pi or Any PCB

Apple seems to garner a fair amount of design kudos for their products.  But there are those products that one looks at and you say "Of course, perfect".  That's what I said about the XCLIP, a printed circuit board (PCB) holder perfect for items like the Raspberry Pi.  Many boards these days either have few mounting holes, holes in awkward place, or no holes at all (to save space and cost one hopes).


The XCLIP, a design by PrototypeAsia on ThingiVerse, is a fully parametrisable four corner PCB mounting solution which can be securely mounted on any flat surface without adding more than 2 mm in thickness to the total assembly.



The XCLIP is configured using four parameters: PCB length, width, thickness and component clearance; the XCLIP configurator generates an STL file which can be 3D printed in less than 25 minutes on any 3D printer.  There are pre-generated clips for the Pi and Arduino Uno on the ThingiVerse site.

As Raspberry Pis are incorporated into designs (and for that matter Makers place circuit boards into nearly anything), this simple, inexpensive but effective solution will be one of those items like the fork (not the spork) that we just use.

Perhaps some enterprising company will stamp some XCLIPs out inexpensively until such time as we all have MakerBot 5s in our homes.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Have your Pi AlaMode

My weekly perusal over a Seeed Studios, the Chinese open hardware shop, turned up a treat.  Wyolum has designed the AlaMode, a board that attached to the Raspberry Pi GPIO expansion pins to provide an Arduino-compatible microcontroller with some neat extras.  Being late to the game is the price I pay for not going up north to Maker Faire NYC.




From the SeeedStudio site: AlaMode is an Arduino compatible development board that extends the Raspberry Pi. With Raspberry Pi ‘A la Mode, you can write a program on the Pi in any language you want, to control or monitor your Arduino application, making Internet integration and control easy. In addition you can program the AlaMode directly from the Pi. Or, turning things around, think of Raspberry Pi as a highly capable Ethernet and display shield for the AlaMode!

Features
  • Fully compatible with Arduino, including Arduino shields
  • Plugs in to Raspberry-Pi GPIO header
  • Voltage safe – Bidirectional translator converts between 3.3V for Raspberry-Pi and 5V for Arduino
  • Same form factor as the Raspberry-Pi
  • 5V Micro-USB socket for Power In
  • Servo Headers with along with GND and 5V headers for easy connection of 3 wire servos
  • Micro-SD card for data storage and Arduino use
  • High precision RTC chip with battery backup (CR2016 battery not included). Possible to set time on Raspberry-Pi without Internet connection
  • Convenient headers for FTDI, ICSP, Analog Reference (3V3 or 5V0), GPS module,

Check out the Bald Wisdom blog for a number of posts on using the AlaMode.  This includes their demo using the Adafruit motor shield to control a model train.

With the recent sellout and discontinuance of the Gertboard kit, this may be just what the Pi owner ordered.

Friday, October 26, 2012

How Much Time for the Arduino Mega?

Every several days I browse eBay under keyword Arduino to see what the universe of parts may be currently offered.  I didn't know it when I started, but it is clear now that over time one can deduce what the state of the market is by observing the trends.  That coupled with the latest news provides me the insights for today's post.

The Arduino Uno style clones are growing in frequency at lower price points.  I have seen two styles of Adafruit motor shield clones at about half the genuine price.  The Ethernet shield clones are below $15 which is rather amazing as the official model is three times that.

But today, I focused on the Arduino Mega (current retail $65).  With the announcement of the Arduino Due, it seems there is a marked reduction in the prices the Mega and its clones are commanding. The Arduino group has not announced the Mega's fate but with the Due offering significant performance and capability improvements over the Mega at a lower price point, the Mega will most likely be discontinued.

While I could see a repricing of the Uno at $25 and the Leonardo at $20 in comparison to the $49.95 Due, I have a hard time seeing Italian manufacturing accommodating this well as the margins diminish.  This may be possible though - the Raspberry Pi is being manufactured by Sony in the UK for $35, so the low parts count Arduinos could be still made in the EU at affordable prices.  I would say if the Mega stays part of the Arduino lineup, a price point above $32.50 would be rather hard to sustain.  The clones are running $20-$26 so a price of $29.95 would be better.  But then again, will Makers keep using the board when the Uno and Due bookend it?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Gertboard Availability Follow-up

The Raspberry Pi forums are humming today with posts on the fate of the Gertboard but no word from the Raspberry Pi Foundation nor additional posts by Farnell the distributor.  The only post I saw from inventor Gert van Loo was a response on a copyright on the name which he confirmed he had.

What little is known is that both Farnell and Tandy have zero stock and Farnell has discontinued the kit product.  It appears the board may be back as a completed board but would a manufacturer want to redesign things to take more advantage of surface mount for pick-n-place machines?  Would they wish to edge out our man Gert from the process?

Well some folks are posting on actually using their Raspberry Pi + Gertboard.  See Youtube here and here.  I have yet to start my build (I hear it's about 3.5 hours to do) and I'm committed to get the house ready for Hurricane Sandy :(

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Is there a Gertboard Availability Controversy?

As I stated in my last post, I received my Raspberry Pi expansion Gertboard yesterday.  The main conclusion was I wasn't impressed with the Newark/Element14 way of packaging it all and I'm still not fond of surface mount parts.  The soldering may be a bit easier though - as of today I received my Hakko 888 soldering iron from Adafruit.

But reading the Interwebs today, it appears that my impressions on availability have blown up from an observation into a real problem.  The item is no longer available from Element14/Farnell (not just out of stock) with a FAQ update and a posting stating:
"Thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately we are not taking any new orders for the Gertboard at present as this one is going discontinued. We have a new Gertboard that will be launched shortly updates on this will be available through the element14 website."
A NEW GERTBOARD??  REALLY? Ok I have two Rev 1 Raspberry Pis and now a Gen1 Gertboard limited edition unassembled.  Now the Pis I don't mind to much (but I really would like the extra 256K RAM on the Rev Bs).  But I was hoping for a slew of cool things to do with the Gertboard based on tutorials and code written for education (this was a RasPi Foundation sanctioned board mainly for education).  Do I have a dinosaur 24 hours on?

The Raspberry Pi forum appears to have many posts just today on the issue.  This thread has boiled it down to Farnell deciding the experiment in making such kits was not a good one and they appear to be leaning towards selling whole boards.  This could require FCC and European RF certification and who knows which  way it could all go.

A few hours ago I was rather excited.  Now it all seems like a mess.  Anyone have thoughts on the issue?

Gertboard Arrived

I received my Gertboard yesterday, having order it way back on August 9th.  The Gertboard is an add-on electronics control board approved by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.  I ordered it from Newark for US delivery.  Rather strange really, it has a label with my name and Farnell/Element17 from the UK but it was supposedly posted UPS via a second label from Newark, Gaffney, South Carolina, US.

That aside, I received the board and two plastic bags of parts.  All the parts seem to be in individual bags, like they were picked from a warehouse that way, even the chips each have individual plastic chip carriers (not electrostatic foam), each in a bag.  I'll have to download any instructions required from the web (and that's known just because I read a Raspberry Pi blog post).

Why do I sound disappointed as I knew this was a kit?  Well Tandy in the UK also bought some boards but made their own kits.  Those kits appear to package the parts in order of assembly with instructions (see this blog post for more on the Tandy package).

At least the kit comes with colored jumpers to help interconnect parts.  It takes the sting out of having to learn to solder about 13 surface-mount resistors and capacitors (Note to Newark et al. - even your new partner Adafruit does the surface mounting for their customers).

Apparently Newark is stating they have sold out and are not accepting further orders.  Given I paid $20 for shipping (rather steep from South Carolina to my East Coast home), I would suggest waiting for Tandy to get them back in stock.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Arduino IDE Targets Multiple Platforms - Let's Hear it for the Pi

The Arduino folks confirmed yesterday the new Arduino Integrated Development Environment (IDE) version 1.5 will support multiple 'toolchains', essentially one can program in one language and have it compile using an underlying code compiler and then it would download to the target board.  So the IDE is no longer tied to the ATMega chips of more classic Arduinos - the new Due uses a different 32 bit core and thus needs a different underlying compiler.

The important thing is this statement by Arduino:
The new Arduino environment (IDE) can now be configured to target multiple processor architectures, each with its own toolchain and compilation process. To support a new processor family, the core language and libraries need to be ported (as we’ve done for the Due) and some configuration files edited to specify the commands for compilation and uploading. We’ve focused on ensuring that this new system works seamlessly for the Due and our existing AVR-based boards, but with some tweaks and improvements, we imagine that it will allow the Arduino environment to work with many, many more microcontrollers. 
Now as I am a C programmer, I keep looking at Python code meant for the Raspberry Pi and scratch my head.  Adafruit is even making a wickedly cool integrated IDE for python on the Pi.

I can see someone being rather cleaver and allowing the Raspberry Pi gcc compiler targeting ARM6 to be one of the new Arduino target devices.  The hard part would be ensuring libraries compile cleanly and the pin mappings are handled well (most likely refering to the cool work of the WiringPi project).

So who's up for a noble challenge?

Monday, October 22, 2012

5 volt systems are the CRT, 3.3 volt is the LCD

Like CRT to LCD, standard def television to HDTV, DVD to BluRay, the "king of the hill" electronics change, sometimes slowly, sometimes rather fast depending on many factors.  Consumer adoption sometimes drives the timeline.  In electronics it can often be parts availability.  If the chip makers discontinue designs, the electrical engineers must change their designs or maybe discontinue the product.

5 volts has been the electronics standard for powering chips for decades.  Since the 7400 series discrete logic chips, you had to have 5 volts to power devices and talk between chips.

But 3.3 volts (often abbreviated 3V3 or 3v3) has been growing strong in recent years.  This has accelerated with mobile electronics growth, lower voltage reduces power and heat loss.  Many popular systems are now 3 .3 volt including popular XBee radios and many flavors of microcontrollers.

But 5 volt chips do not talk to 3V3 chips well.  You can use a number of engineering tricks such as voltage dividers or FETs or go elegant with a level converter chip in between.

Many of the new systems are coming out in 3V3 power including the Raspberry Pi (internally, 5V from the tap), and the new Arduino Due (the new spec sheet has a warning to ensure folks know this fact).

It certainly looks like 5 volt designs will continue to wane.  It may be awhile before it joins VHS tapes and CRT displays - you should start to plan your designs for the 3.3 volt future.
 

Due Day

Today's the day that the first retailer that I have seen has said they are actually selling the Arduino Due - Adafruit.  In an earlier post I stated that the 32 bit microcontroller market, one that blurs the distinction with computers like the Raspberry Pi, is crowded.  My final analysis was the product had to be priced right, under $50.  And I seemed to have hit it, with Adafruit pricing an assembled unit (with headers) at $49.95.

They had quantity discounts listed up until 11:25 a.m. but pulled those, perhaps due to limited quantities at introduction.

With the final feature set now being released, probable software like wav/ogg file generation, second USB host connection, the product does seem to hit a market others do not have covered.

I hope shield compatibility works out better than the Arduino Leonardo, which has been very problematic (although you can buy an extra TransmogriShield from Sparkfun to rearrange connections for an extra $14.95).

The Maker community will have these in hand soon, I sincerely hope some very cool projects and add-ons/shields come out in short order.

PS If one wants to make their own compatibility between a classic Arduino shield and other products, check out this Kickstarter for a cool board.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Arduino Shields on Your New Raspberry Pi Gertboard

The Gertboard hardware expansion board for the Raspberry Pi is now shipping.  I received my Newark confirmation last week.  Besides many cool driver chips, it has an Arduino ATMega chip and all the breakout pins along one side.  In my opinion, I believe the Pi + Arduino is a good fit - expanded hardware and peace of mind that Linux will not interrupt real-time control at a crucial moment.

The one issue folks may have an issue with is Arduino shield (expansion board) compatibility. There are not "standard spaced" headers to place the pins so shields may be used by plugging them in.  More of a mechanical issue than compatibility really.  Clever people are wiring them up directly (an example Youtube video is here).  But I had an epiphany - use the Gertboard and the Kickstarter Breadboard Shield Adapter which adapts a shield header format to a pin inline format which can be mapped to the Gertboard easier.

The adapter's inline pins would map well to the Gertboard below
Gertboard ATMega pins on the left would map to the pins placed in the breadboard above.

Now it is only a matter of a few months until some cleaver person actually makes a direct adapter to plug shields into the Gertboard (you read it here first).  In the interim, I say buy a Breadboard Shield Adapter and then pat the pins yourself, either on a breadboard setup or a custom cable or just by wiring things yourself - it'll work much better than using individual jumper cables to to a test setup (that would not travel well).

Anyone game?

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Education and Electronics

It was menswear magnate Sy Sims who extolled "An educated consumer is our best customer." In the small businesses that are dominating the Maker Movement, many of them are taking this phrase to heart.

The poster child for informing customers is Adafruit.  First with their tutorials and now with their new learn.adafruit.com portal, their tutorials not only on parts usage but actually how to make projects that may be the building blocks to your own projects is impressive.  Grade A, gold star in my book.

Make magazine and their Maker Shed store have been in the game too although I have never thought they provided the comprehensive information available on Adafruit and some non-retail sites.  Reading Make, the projects are way cool, but there is no specificity on trying to recreate the work yourself.  More like Popular Mechanics than Popular Electronics.

Finally there is Sparkfun.  My take is they focused on having a broad array of products, many of which one could not find elsewhere (as they took useful parts and placed them on custom PCBs to allow the average person to hook up wires and piece together projects).  But their datasheets and other material often have  not been comprehensive, leaving the person to figure out the particulars themselves.  But they have launched their own learn.sparkfun.com site so I have high expectations.  In Sparkfun's favor, though, is their public class offerings to get hands-on.  .

No one site has the perfect mix of information and products.  If Digikey et al. ever documented every part in their catalogs to current expectations, it would be nirvana but do not expect that anytime soon (although keep an eye on Element14).  Until then, those sites which focus on the "right mix" of offerings and consumer information may just have the best customer base.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Are Arduino Unos Coming Down in Price?

In a previous post, I discussed the expansion of the microcontroller ecosystem (something predictable for a popular segment, call it Moore's Law if you will, I didn't).  I admit I do not have the free time to do thorough market analysis on products but I keep my eye on things and I think I have spotted a trend.  Arduinos appear to be dropping in price.

The Chinese knockoffs open source compatibles have always tried to undercut the official Italian boards but often not by much.  The compatibles appear to be dropping in price.  Yourduino has boards now from $17.50 to $21.50.  Itead has dropped their board to $22.50 and have expanded their low cost IBoard series (that integrates ethernet at prices comparable with the Uno's price).  Seeed dropped their Duemilanove clone to $22.50 from $27.50.

Ok, so what about the original?  Microcenter in the US is advertising the Arduino Uno for $19.99 but on further inspection it is the "Gheo Electronics Arduino Uno Rev. 3" - somewhat deceptive.

The official products appear to be holding in price at US companies like Adafruit, Sparkfun, etc.  Will this last?  Perhaps with the introduction of the Arduino Due in coming days, finally the Uno pricing will come down to a bit more than the soft selling Leonardo?

Friday, October 12, 2012

Supporting "Breadboard Shield Adapter for Microcontrollers or Arduino" on Kickstarter

Another one of those "duh, cool, I want one!" Kickstarter projects.  The "Breadboard Shield Adapter for Microcontrollers or Arduino" project is brought to us by Chuck Hellebuyck.  It allows electronics in the "Arduino Shield" form factor to be plugged into this board and all the pins are brought to a 0.1 inch spaced breadboard friendly layout.

Have a PIC or a Nano / tiny form factor microcontroller?  No problem to get to a shield's pins.

Prices are reasonable - I chose the $12 level for the board only (I have lots of headers from previous projects).  You can also get a kit with unsoldered headers or an assembled board.

Head over to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/818225433/breadboard-shield-adapter-for-microcontrollers-or for more information.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Instilling Confidence in New Projects: Talk to the Crowd

The Raspberry Pi Foundation and good Kickstarter projects share an important feature when it comes to instilling confidence in a newly developed customer base: talk, and lots of it.

When one has a concept but no shipping product, how do you convince potential customers?  Certainly not News Releases (which are ignored regularly).  No, blog posts, spec sheets, and lots and lots of answering questions from the Internet.  Nothing appeases the masses like information - when no product is in hand, it is the only currency you may have.

Does a plethora of information help?  Yes - look at the Pebble watch Kickstarter and many more.

So if you plan to do "something wonderful" and need (or want) support then put the word out, frequently, and ensure you engage your customers' questions.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Does Familiarity with Programming Language Drive Platform Adoption?

In the previous generation, everyone learned BASIC, it was bundled with every computer and there were lots of do it yourself programs in magazines and at Radio Shack.  When you learned a more serious language, there were several forks: FORTRAN, COBOL, etc. for business use, PASCAL, Lisp, etc. for the free thinkers, assembly for the hardware types, and C which spanned bare hardware to operating systems design.

My path was a bit skewed: FORTRAN and COBOL in High School (with some hacking of the university minicomputer in BASIC), FORTRAN in liberal arts school (with more BASIC hacking), assembler and C in engineering school, then off to my first job with more FORTRAN (programming in C for fun).  Very old school they would now say.

So as I adopt hardware platforms in projects today, I gravitate more towards what I know.  Arduino was a natural, being mostly C.  Raspberry Pi has helped me relearn Unix/Linux syntax.  I have looked at Python but the syntax is not close enough to the other languages to be an immediate fit.

Which brings me to today's question: will the programming environment make or break a microcontroller platform?  The choice of C/C++ for Arduino has been borne out.  Linux environments have a wealth of options as long as storage is not severely constrained.

But what about up and coming chips?  Some modify the Wiring/Processing environment of Arduino to work, others use IDEs provided by chip companies (which often have better debugging but syntax that one must pick up).  Picking up a new programming environment takes time.  Learning a completely new language is tougher.

The choice can make or break an up and comer.  My advice is to support C, not because it is on Arduino.  But because it is a well understood language, very flexible, and is very powerful (from Hello World to operating systems in under an hour ;-) ).  Thoughts?

Friday, October 5, 2012

Ok, it could be cool, but...

The other day I wrote about the Arduinos and other processors, sowing some doubt.  I could be wrong with my forecasting but I would like to see good things happen in coming days.

The Arduino Due recently made an appearance at Maker Faire in New York this past week.  Samples were not generally available though but the timeline seem to point to a release in a month.

This would be the last of the three products announced over a year ago.  The Leonardo came out followed by the new Wifi Shield.

I would concur there is a market for these products - I've been looking for the Wifi Shield since I saw it in Making Things Talk.  But on arrival it seems rather expensive and it has a rather complex processor to drive it all.

The 32 bit Due will drive innovation in the larger microcontroller market that has exploded beyond earlier designs like the Beagleboard/Beaglebone.  The later board set a point at the $89 dollar level.  A number of other boards followed with the latest, the Teensy 3.0 just released at $28.  But a huge bar was set this Summer with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi.  At $35 it has a 32 bit processor, 256MB ram, ethernet, 2 USB, and GPIO.  Not quite as flexible as many 32 bit microcontrollers but it is a self-contained linux compatible system.

I hope the Due comes in at a price point that is competitive with currently released systems and not something like the 'bone - anything above $50 could be an impediment to wide adoption (Makers are a rather frugal bunch).  But if it provided needed power at a good price, it could rise to a new standard.

My tone may have held doubt - I would be happy to change my tune - good luck Due.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Are Large Processors on the Decline in Home Computing?

Ok, I will date myself - I was a consumer at the beginning of the PC era - I lugged Compaq Portables for schoolwork and we bought a Compaq DeskPro (yes the original 8086) as our first "PC".  So I've seen the rise of IBM compatibles for going on 30 years.  While I have not bought every Intel processor family released (usually every other or so), I consider myself a tried and true PC fan.  It was even a chuckle when Apple converted from the Motorola 68000 series to the "Intel Macs" (which are PCs too, albeit ones that cost at least double what a comparable PC costs for the same specs).

PCs in the first ten years are what something like the Raspberry Pi is today, a tool that people programmed and hacked (if you didn't mind hacking something that cost $2000 in 1980's dollars).  For the last 15 years, something happened - the ability to program your PC has not been promoted.  We "had apps" (when apps were programs), who needed to write your own?

Here is the punch: the PC market has lost the group that initially made the PC great - we'd call them programmers or hackers then, we call them Makers now.  People that are not afraid to get down and really make something with what they have.  Yes, I can download Visual BASIC (or Visual C, etc.) for free and program what I wish.  But the boat has sailed - app writers program for what's hot and selling and that is now the portable market.

They now say who needs a PC class machine when portables will do 90% of what they will do for less - plus the app writers have your back.

I built my latest machine, the one I type on now - it has the latest parts and it did cost a significant part of the $2,000 one might pay for a high-end (but not high end gaming) PC over the years.  I hope it is not my last.  But the decision may belong to Intel.  Microsoft sees the writing on the wall with Windows 8 RT et al., do you?

Intel, you have kick-butt hardware and I've been with you since the 808x series.  But please you really, really need to court the Makers, the tinkerers.  This is your Undiscovered Country, your Killer App, to bring in some of the customers away from ARM.  Don't cede the entire Maker market to the low end microcontrollers - revolution most often comes up from below, don't rest in peace at the top - I love you too much to see those billion dollar fabs go idle.