What to do with a Gertboard?

Why don't you download the user manaul and have a read. If you're a programmer the programming sections are probably too easy but the manual also tells a bit about the hardware and what it does. It will not replace an electronics course.

Board ordered :-) Thank you for making something like this Gert.

A reasonable question to ask is whether Gert will come to the Element 14 forum to answer support questions about his board.  As he undoubtedly knows, lots of people have been banned from the RPF sites despite totally polite and reasonable behavior on their part, and here is where they tend to gather if they have an interest in hardware.

If Gert will only interact through the Foundation's blog and forum then I cannot recommend anyone using his board, because that would make availability of support controlled by Liz's whim.

[Update -- sudden realization, see below.]

Morgaine.

And answering my own question, I belatedly notice that Gert has posted in this very thread, lol.  Serves me right for not reading posters' names.

Thanks Gert, sounds like a good board to get.  Downloading the resource materials now.  (And getting a big coffee to wake me up, which I clearly need.)

PS. Didn't the blush smilie used to be an embarrassed pink?

Morgaine

Gert van Loo wrote:

 

It will not replace an electronics course.

Looking at the board and schematics, it occurs to me that the board could be used quite nicely as the basis of a simple electronics course and provide basic electronics instrumentation at the same time.

For example, while school kids are not too likely to purchase a real oscilloscope, it's not a big stretch to obtain basic waveform display from a buffered A/D, which could greatly enhance an electronic kit's educational value, and then subsequently support further explorations into electronics.

Given the size of the Pi community, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find people capitalizing on your work and taking it in this direction.  It seems to provide a missing link that Arduino doesn't quite fill through lacking a high-level component, which the Pi provides.  Waveform sampling on the Gertboard and display on the Pi seems a perfect combination.

Anyone have a favourite "scope front-end" circuit to fit the 12x7 grid of holes?

Morgaine.

while school kids are not too likely to purchase a real oscilloscope

many moons ago when I was at school there were one or two basic scopes available for the science/technology classes. No doubt lots will have changed since then, but I'd be dismayed to learn that wasn't still the case.

I do agree that few kids are likely to have one available at home though.

Someone over on the other forums was writing a basic logic analyser in software, but I seem to remember he could only get it up to around 1Mhz sample rate. Not entirely useless, but quickly overwhelmed by even a simple mcu these days. I guess the point is to get them hooked though, so some carefully planned stuff that's within range could work.

It reminds me of our related conversation in another thread about the role of Heathkit in our own educations.  We live in the "age of multicore" and today's systems employ multiple computers at all levels, so I'm pleased to see Gert's interface board having its own CPU and being designed very explicitly as just one half of a 2-processor system.

In addition, I've long been advocating the horses-for-courses approach of using an embedded microcontroller for realtime interfacing, connected to a Unix-type system for non-realtime high level work.  Let them each do what they each do best.  That's what this provides, a way in to system engineering.

In fact, it's such an "obvious" thing to do that I'm very surprised that none of the ARM board manufacturers has placed an applications processor for Linux AND a bare-metal ARM microcontroller on the same board for this purpose.  A low-end ARM microcontroller can add very little indeed to the overall BOM cost, a fraction of a dollar according to ARM marketing blurb.

Hmmm, where did I put Olimex's email address ...

Hi David.

I have probably got this all wrong but I am seeing the Pi/Gertboard combo as a compact replacement for a PC/Arduino combo where the PC is used to both program the Arduino and do the background grunt work using the "Processing" language,

The Gertboard would replace the Arduino for suitable projects and the Pi would take the part of the PC/Processing combo and do the programming and background heavy lifting.

Lets see what the future holds. I look forward to the challenges ahead.

Ray

Hi Ray

My thoughts exactly.  Why buy a PC and an Arduino when you can have a Linux system and a Gertboard.

Cheers

David