The Grande Arduino

Nice looking board.  Not sure why Arduino likes that LED matrix so much.

ralphjy said:

Not sure why Arduino likes that LED matrix so much.

I think this comes from Microchip, not as the first (I think), but also from the Intel 8048, 8049 controllers.
Look for that, the PIC now the Atmel's as well as use this (LED-matrix).

The ideas are saving numbers of port pins because small µC's haven't many pins.
Multi usage the ports is a very old method.

In this kind you can combine keyboards together with LEDs.

The very old method was printing graphic images in the MSDOS aera using dot matrix printers. 
-> Snoopy and Charlie Brown, the peanuts.

I was more complaining about the use of the space and the fact that once you put a shield on it is not visible.

yep. this is a good argument.

ralphjy said:

once you put a shield on it is not visible

I'm guessing they might argue that there is a Modulino LED Matrix for that

I think private forum would have more support than discord.

Right, that’s where it should be.  It was probably an okay fit for the Uno R4 (although still has the shield issue).  I just don’t see why you would put something like that on a Ventuno Q.  I’ve found an 8x13 matrix isn’t that useful although it would be fun for kids.

I think that a private forum would be great.  I know that I would definitely use it.  Would it only be available for roadtesters?

I thought it might have been to improve on the single LED blinky experience you got with the UNO, to allow new users to do something a bit more visually appealing straight out of the box.

If you look at the micro:bit, then quite often the first coding projects are to get something to display on the LED matrix before reaching for the breadboard. I find the single character scrolling text a bit painful though.

However if that was the case, then I am surprised that they didn't include the LED matrix on the R4 Minima.

I think something like a 128x64 OLED display would be more useful these days though. I guess if it was removable, then you could get the best of both worlds.

beacon_dave said:

I thought it might have been to improve on the single LED blinky experience you got with the UNO, to allow new users to do something a bit more visually appealing straight out of the box

The single LED blinky is ingenious. It's clear to the newbie that they did something "real electronic".

And it's easy to go from there and understand the few lines of blinky code.

That is: if you don't use the Raspberry Pico blinky's recent version. That 's almost an antipattern on how to get someone started...
They have a simpler version, but that doesn't work on pico-w ...