There's a Kickstarter running right now for the latest version of the Teensy:
Teensy 3.0 - 32 bit ARM Cortex-M4, usable in Arduino and C
Teensy 3.0 is a small, breadboard-friendly development board designed by Paul Stoffregen and PJRC. Teensy 3.0 will bring a low-cost 32 bit ARM Cortex-M4 platform to hobbyists, students and engineers, using Arduino(R)** or programming directly in C language.
The part that piqued my interest is where Paul writes about the Arduino compatibility:
With the initial release, Teensyduino will support the normal Arduino functions, digitalWrite, pinMode, analogRead, and so on.
However, there are many libraries for Arduino(R)** which are not designed to be cross-platform. Paul Stoffregen has personally ported dozens of libraries to Teensy 2.0 (and in the process, also Arduino Mega and now Arduino Leonardo). Firmata, Servo, IRremote and OneWire are just a few of the well known Arduino libraries which work across many boards, due to Teensy's porting project. Teensy 3.0 will continue this process, for most major Arduino libraries, and in the process probably pave the way for easy porting to other 32 bit boards, like the upcoming Arduino Due.
Paul has also contributed numerous features and bug fixes to Arduino. Teensy 3.0 will continue this tradition. Here is a list of Arduino contributions to date:
It seems to me that other non-AVR boards (like PIC32 ChipKit or the ARM Maple) that strove for Arduino software compatibility haven't reached critical mass in their porting efforts. The promise of the ARM-based Arduino DUE has been on the horizon for awhile, but I don't believe there is any projected release date after a limited beta was released back in May. Is it possible that the Teensy 3.0 could realize the goal of a smooth non-AVR Arduino experience first?
Cheers,
