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NXP i.MX 8M Mini Applications Processor Evaluation Board

-40 C to +105 C good enough for you?

Also, this SoC: NXP Semiconductors MIMX8MM6DVTLZAA

From the Pine64 FAQ:

What is Pine A64 operating temperature?
The Pine A64 operating temperature qualified range from 0C to 70C.

You'll need active heating and cooling of some sort to go with a Pine64. I think NXP's i.MX line is more focused on what you're looking for.

Easy to hide, at sizes like 2.75 x 1.85 x 0.95mm, could be in just about anything, and would be hard to spot even if people would bother to look (and the device could be opened without damage). Example

Why miss what you can still have? Starting at under $33!

https://www.mouser.com/Product...

But I'm not sure you'd have any advantage over a $5 ARM SoC.

Courtesy of following links in the Wikipedia RRAM page, I find this, an Panasonic 8 bit CPU with embedded RRAM memory. According to Wikipedia, this was around in mid 2016. (RRAM = resistive RAM, a more general term which would include HP's memristor.)

.....never have been able to get that old original 2600 to work right with video on modern tv.

For real? My 2600 is hooked up to a 1080p 24" LED TV and seems to work just fine.

I'm using something similar to this instead of the old switchbox:
http://www.mouser.com/ProductD...

intel tried iot with the curie chip, too.

http://www.mouser.com/ProductD...

$20 for a failure of a chip. no one uses it. it has bugs and its internal features are not really competitive (or even functional, in some cases!)

they made a tv show from it, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... but since it was not a success, they canceled season2 and there won't be any more.

intel does not have the right people for this area. and they let go anyone who DID have a clue ;(

oh, intel. sigh..

Sometimes C is too much.
Check this out - 512 bytes of program storage and 32 bytes of memory.

> Intel doesn't know how to build small chips

Intel has been building small chips for a while.

What? Engineering is a one time cost.

When someone says a lot more engineering went into something maybe you should look at the article where it explained it all

Also, quite frankly, it's a freaking power adapter. Sure, it has microchips in it, but so what?

Which cost more money to buy. Which cost more money to implement. Which ensures your $2000 laptop won't be fried by the charger.

The micro-controllers sells for around $2 at mouser electronics.

Feel free to retrofit your charger to use them then. While you're at it please redesign your boards to accommodate. I would guarantee it takes you more than 8 hours of your time.

In quantity, even less. http://www.mouser.com/search/r... I can buy a damn entire Amazon Fire Tablet for $50 (which has FAR more engineering than a fancy power supply), and Apple charges $80 for a charger? Does this make sense to you?

Then buy a Amazon Fire Tablet. If you want to gamble and get a cheap charger for your expensive laptop go ahead. Don't come crying to anyone when it fries your computer.

It's an IC performing capacitive touch sensing. It sends waveforms down micro-wires in the screen assembly and measures phase shifts and magnitudes to detect touch.

e.g. http://www.mouser.com/Semicond...

Over here in facts-based land, the Note 7 has a MAX77838 keeping track of power.

The MAX77838 is a power management IC. It claims to have some other circuitry for battery management, but since MAXIMs website does not acknowledge that part number, we have no way of knowing what it really has or doesn't have. All outward appearances would suggest that it is a custom chip for Samsung (probably used in several of their product lines). Personally, I expect that the MAX77838 is similar to the MAX77829 (PMIC + single cell Lion charging circuit). This would make some sense since it looks like Samsung elected to use an external PMIC, and since they had to have one anyways, getting one that had the charging circuit built in would not be that big a deal. Unfortunately for Samsung, the charging circuit has to be relatively tuned to the specific battery being used. Generically designed Lion chargers have a habit of failing. (So much so that Tenma actually ships many of their battery chargers with a fireproof pouch to put the battery in while charging it...

This just goes to show how stupid Samsung is for designing it this way. Since the fault lies either with the Custom Maxim Chip, with the battery itself (or a mismatch between the two), Samsung has backed itself into a corner. They cannot just replace the defective Maxim Chip with an off the shelf component because there is no drop in replacement or they wouldn't have had Maxim build a custom chip in the first place. Nor can they simply change the battery easily, as the batteries are manufactured to spec as well.

If samsung had offloaded the charging and battery management control into software running on one of the processors in the phone, then they would likely have been able to fix the problem with a firmware update. Now, because they did not have the sense to do what everyone else is doing, they are fucked.

The best kept open secret in the Phone / Tablet world are the PSOC processors that are used extensively for all of the low level work in these devices. Cypress sells nearly as many processors as Broadcom, and nobody has ever heard of them. Their processors come with built in PMIC, Capacitive touch sense (which is why everyone started using them in the first place), and a host of other powerful features that reduce part count and unit cost. I have personally designed a half dozen devices that used them, two of which had battery charging circuits and charge control software. The irony is that the PSOC processors cost cost about $5 each and they are full featured processors while the Maxim ICs Cost more than that and are just a PMIC.

TLDR: Samsung is staffed by incompetent engineers. Its no wonder they have exploding phones, their engineers designed a phone with at least $5 more parts than they should have had, but skipped on the thermostat protection on the battery to save $0.50. If they used this same chip in the S5, then they lost more than 60 million dollars in excess unit cost in just the first three months of sales, and now with the S7, its going to cost them billions.

GPS sensors have come a long way.

http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/238...

A GPS/GALILEO/GLONASS sensor that draws 16 mA tracking. That's ~15 hours on the Apple Watch battery (excluding all other loads).

Some intelligent power saving techniques to not monitor continuously and you could easily extend that.

Plenty available from mouser. Good for learning because it fits in a breadboard.

and greybeards/hams tend to use obsolete hardware and chant "right tool for the job" because they refuse to learn new things. same guys show up for an interview and wonder why they don't get hired.

Us greybeards would be impressed with these things if there was anything to be impressed about. This thing is far too little far too late. for $10, you can get one of these.

You young uns don't even understand enough to know what to get excited about...

Everything you mentioned in your first paragraph is completely trivial. Do you seriously believe that it's significantly harder to build a robot that can handle a bacon burger, or a two-patty-three-bun burger, or a chicken burger?

This is just a robot that makes a tower of ingredients. Sometimes the ingredient list is "bottom-bun, patty, top-bun", sometimes it's "bottom-bun, patty, middle-bun, patty, bacon, top-bun". That's basically trivial. The only substantial difference between a big mac and a chicken burger is the cooking method, which is highly automated already.

I don't understand why you think that's difficult, or that a plain burger is at all a likely result. A robot that can make a tower of various ingredients is the same complexity as the design projects we ask groups of 3 second-year engineering students to do, in between their other courses (I remember my second year design project, I judge it to be more difficult). This microcontroller is easily capable of doing that on-demand, in fact it's overkill: http://www.mouser.com/ProductD..., and it costs less than 5 dollars.

This is certainly not enormously complex or expensive. It doesn't take a great deal of manual dexterity to assemble a burger.

Where it gets slightly more difficult is when you have all burgers, and you suddenly want to add a wrap, or a pizza, or a bowl of soup, or an ice-cream cone. Something that is completely different and doesn't fit with the existing robot's design. You might want a different robot for that, or maybe reduce to one employee who makes specialty items.

I think you massively overestimate how difficult it is to make a hamburger robot, and underestimating how much of the cooking is automated today. A big reason McDonalds isn't automated is because it doesn't just sell hamburgers. Another reason is that the sort of ordering interface that customers would use only recently became commonly available & understood. You need a touchscreen or similar, that can handle requests like "no pickles" or "allergic to nuts" or whatever, vending-machine-like payment methods, etc. -- I've used these at human-staffed places where there is no cashier and it works great, but it's not super common yet and some people will always hate it just like some people hate self-checkout at grocery stores, even though I prefer it. Apparently McDonalds is looking into doing that to the ordering process.

(Another reason is drive-through, mainly because drive-through windows were not designed to be easy to robotically pass credit cards and food to a person who positioned thier car in any idiot position, and it's not an easy retrofit).

Sure, why not?

That's not necessarily the chip you'd use in a phone, but there's plenty more where it came from, of various levels of sophistication. In fact, I'd be surprised if a large proportion of all cheap AM/FM radios sold today do not contain chips, though they are likely to be mostly analogue chips. The FM radio chip in a phone likely also handles a plethora of other functions. As a designer, you effectively get FM for free with the functions you actually wanted to include.

ST has superseded the Discovery boards with "Nucleo" boards, and they are a big improvement.

First, they are cheap. All the Nucleo boards are $10. All STM32 MCUs are represented; F0 through F4.

Nucleo boards have standard Arduino connectors and they also have ST's new, much larger headers called "Morpho." STM32s have a lot more pins than traditional Arduino class parts and the ST Morpho headers expose them all. The new headers surround the Arduino headers on the same board so you may use either.

Probably the best part of the Nucleo boards is the ST-LINK 2.1 hardware+firmware. The new ST-LINK appears to the host as three devices: a fully integrated OpenOCD 0.8 compatible in-circuit programmer and debugger, a virtual serial device and a mass storage device. You can program a Nucleo by copying your bin image to the mass storage device+file system and ST-LINK will automatically flash the MCU with the new image. No special drivers or programming software needed.

Discovery was nice and a big step by ST, but Nucleo is a new class of low cost ARM dev/eval boards.

Actually, the 6502 only cost $6.95 in today's dollars.

http://www.mouser.com/ProductD...

Violates the laws of physics does it?
http://www.mouser.com/new/powe...

Look at it. Read the damned data sheet: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/329...

You'd better let the world know one of the largest Electronics parts suppliers in the world is scamming them then. Because that's exactly what that IC does. 50ma output to! I doubt it gets that continuously, but carried around in close proximity to your phone and computer? Over a period of months? You're damned strait that'd charge it.

FYI that RF harvester is specifically designed to power sensors like what's described in this article. You're supposed to hook it up to a battery and a sensor like this and power that sensor to wireless transmit its readings.

Violates the laws of physics does it?
http://www.mouser.com/new/powe...

Look at it. Read the damned data sheet: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/329...

You'd better let the world know one of the largest Electronics parts suppliers in the world is scamming them then. Because that's exactly what that IC does. 50ma output to! I doubt it gets that continuously, but carried around in close proximity to your phone and computer? Over a period of months? You're damned strait that'd charge it.

FYI that RF harvester is specifically designed to power sensors like what's described in this article. You're supposed to hook it up to a battery and a sensor like this and power that sensor to wireless transmit its readings.

CP2110 $1.57 ea @ qty 1 from Mouser

The Western Digital 65C816 processor can run in 6502 mode (though slower on the clock, it is a 16-bit chip). Oh, and these guys have a pile of 6502's in: http://uk.mouser.com/_/?Keywor...

Care to pick apart the rest of his post point by point,

I took serious exception with the entire post, although I had only limited time to respond. In complete: Lead Acid is entirely the wrong technology for home solar installation, in spite of it being the relatively cheapest. The root reason is total energy density. Even though a home system does not have the space or weight limitations that a mobile system requires, lead acid has such a low energy density compared to virtually all modern option that it is not really suitable for any application except car starter batteries (where power density is paramount). The guy is clearly an "early adopter" who is trying to sound like he knows more than he does, and giving bad advice to boot. When he claims that ultra caps are unavailable at any price: he is dead wrong. And there is no battery system in the world for a solar installation that will function as well as ultra caps, even at current prices because of the virtually limitless charge discharge cycles of ultracaps vs chemical batteries. The best advice I can give to anyone, is if you are really dead set on getting solar right now, spring for the ultracap storage, because it will be significantly cheaper in the long run. A better bet still would be to wait 5-10 years and let the researchers do their stuff, as both chemical battery, and more importantly ultra cap storage is still improving at double digit rates in all metrics.

In summary, the guys confusion of power vs energy density, along with other shortcomings in his post told me that he had no engineering knowledge whatsoever, and at best was a "power user" / early adopter who was just regurgitating the same crap he read on some blog somewhere. The most dangerous misinformation is the crap that contains half truths, or lies by omission like this one. To people who don't know the difference, this guy sounds like an expert, and those people will repeat anything they hear unless there is an immediate and clear voice to call out the BS.

Near-instant charging.

Irrelevant. You're still limited by supply rates and feed wire heating. Top end li-ion cells can charge in a matter of minutes on the small scale. In practice it's supply rate and cooling that limits you.

Much higher discharge rates

Irrelevant. What, you think cars have multi-megawatt inverters and motors? And again, top-end li-ions can have couple minut discharges.

and that without developing significant heat, because their series resistance is negligible

Slow charge and discharge of li-ions (normal usage) is usually over 99% efficiency. Fast charge is usually 94-97%. Fast discharge is irrelevant because the rest of the car can't handle using multiple megawatts at once (what, you think the car's going to get 0-100 times measured in milliseconds?) Older supercaps are less efficient than older li-ions due to an increase in the internal resistance (more in this in a minute)

Enormously more charge/discharge cycles than anything in battery tech

10 years-ish isn't good enough for you? Fine, reduce the depth of discharge to get 15-20 years. You'll still be an order of magnitude higher energy density than ultracaps.

you could will ultracaps used in a vehicle context to your children

You've been way overstating (and repeating a common mythology) about ultracaps. They don't actually last that long. Here's an info sheet from an ultracap manufacturer. Scroll down to "Life Expectancy".

The life expectancy of supercapacitors is identical to aluminum electrolytic capacitors ... Supercapacitors operated at room temperature can have life expectancies of several years

It's pure nonsense that they last forever. Some are rated for longer. For example Ioxus rates theirs at 10 years. But 10 years is pretty common for higher end EV battery packs, too.

This concept that ultracapacitors are something that you can "gift to your children" is just bull. They degrade, too. Following an exponential degradation curve dominated by increasing internal resistance.. So please stop with this nonsense.

Much wider range of usable performance over temperature; much colder, much hotter.

As per the above, operating out of the ideal temperature range cuts your ultracap lifespan. Commercial ultracaps aren't generally rated for wider temperature operating ranges than high-end li-ions, as you'll see from the various linked caps in this post, which are just a random sampling (for example, the Cooper Bussmann aerogel caps are only rated down to -25C, which is not impressive at all). And there's only a rather small range that's necessary for human-operated vehicles on the surface of the Earth. The ambient temperature outside isn't going to reach cold enough to liquify oxygen or melt zinc.

Much less need for recycling

Show me a single type of ultracap which can be recycled at all.

They can't be overcharged at their rated voltage

Overheating of the supercapacitor can occur from continuous overcurrent or overvoltage charging. Overheating can lead to increased ESR, gas generation, decreased lifetime, leakage, venting or rupture. .... General Safety Considerations: Supercapacitors may vent or rupture if overcharged, reverse charged, incinerated or heated above 150C

The

Energy harvesting technology is real, but you don't get much energy unless there's a transmitter nearby, or a really big one in the area. There are now ICs which slowly accumulate energy in a capacitor, and when they have enough, power up some device and run it for a few milliseconds. Depending on RF levels in the area, you may get some useful output several times a second, or several times a day.

Now if you had something like a microwave flashlight (an low power oscillator and horn antenna) you could wave it around and wake up RFID tags, which could then report back. That could be a viable commercial product, more for industrial and commercial than home use. ("Where's a carton of P/N xxxxx-xxxx parts? Oh, there it is, behind that other box.")

1dB is 1 watt, -10dB is .1 watt, -20dB is .001 watt

You're not familiar with RF engineering, why did you say you are.

1dB is not 1 Watt, it's not even a unit of power, it's a unit of gain. common units of radiated power are dBW and dBm, meaning decibels relative to a Watt and decibels relative to a milliwatt (and dBu, relative to a microwatt). 0dBW is 1 Watt,

The scale you give there isn't even remotely correct. If 1dB (of your AU) is 1 Watt, then -9dB is .1 Watts, and .001 Watts is not -20dB but -29dB (of your AU).

Here is a device that does the sort of energy harvesting they claim. Note that the operating input power is (only) down to -11.5dBm, so you would have to be waving your phone less than a meter away from the tag in order to detect it. Perfectly suitable for it's intended applications: Wireless sensors and asset tags, but it won't do what the iFind is claiming.

-puddingpimp

The submitter obviously thinks that things he doesn't understand are scams.

40Gbps is 10 lanes of PCI-e 2.0, enough for any normal gaming card.

The external enclosures are expensive because they're a niche item. They're manufactured in low volume and sold to a 'pro' audience with deep pockets.

In reality, Thunderbolt controllers aren't all that expensive.. Even if an external GPU cost $75 or $100 more than the internal equivalent, it would still be a great way to upgrade an Ultrabook, or a Steam box, or even a cheap name-brand desktop.

Also, you might see completely new products, like monitors with their own GPUs. Don't underestimate a new interface; even USB languished before new ideas like flash drives made it interesting.

The big question is, in order to ensure their survival, would Radio Shack be better off continuing to phase out their brick and mortar presence while making substantial efforts to expand as an exclusively online retailer?"

Not likely. They have no particular advantage in the online space aside from a recognizable (if tarnished) brand name. What they really should have done was to expand their catalog sales back in the day and become a distributor like Digikey or Mouser. I suppose they still could though they are behind the curve. They've gotten into cell phones but no one really thinks Radio Shack when they think cell phones. They sell batteries but there now are specialty battery stores that usually have a better selection and better prices. They don't have the scale or the expertise to compete with Amazon online and they are too unfocused to have profitable retail space. I can't really think of anything where Radio Shack would be my preferred shopping destination.

Radio shack has been trying to be all things to all people and when you do that you don't serve any of them well. They have expensive real estate, small square footage, small selections of products, high prices and unclear strategy. Their advantages are that they are fairly well known and have a lot of storefronts. That's a pretty thin advantage these days. I'm thinking Radio Shack might be a pretty good stock to think about short selling.

You can go to some place like TI's website, and see that while Mouser and Digikey are normally authorized distributors of their products, they are not listed as authorized distributor of some of their product lines listed as defense and aerospace related. A subtle hint is that Mouser and Digikey don't push aerospace as one of the applications, while the manufacturers' websites have pages for such applications. Nonetheless some of the products, or versions of them, end up on those sites anyway. From my desk, this one is clearly labeled on the package as from their US fab, but they don't bother putting that on the Mouser listing.

> Backups are rotated on two drives at least, and they shouldn't be both online at any time, in case of power surge or lightning, or even hacking of the backup server.
> The only way I see to achieve this, with one backup site, is to have backup drive B physically disconnected while backup drive A is plugged.

> How could it be fully automated ?

If your backup facility isn't protected from lightning and you can only have one facility, that does make it harder.
Given those requirements, I suppose one could use a relay on the power line. For the data line, I guess you'd need something
that includes chips like http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductors/Switch-ICs/Analog-Switch-ICs/_/N-7590c/ and I good alternate path to ground.

If I look up that part on Mouser for example, it has a tag there showing it might be subject to export issues.

Some companies and distributors are not very clear or hide export restrictions until the very end. I've gotten a few unexpected calls from person in charge of purchasing where I work, and they have a huge stack of forms that needed to be filled out for the purchase. It is particularly annoying when there is a nearly equivalent part that isn't restricted and does what I need, but I end up with annoying delays because I didn't realize I crossed some threshold. I've seen it in particular with op-amps, where a slight different form factor for the chip makes it export controlled, or if going from a single op-amp to a double op-amp of the same line (must be related to size or density).

It seems designed for the electronics hobbyist, given that it comes with no case, no wall-wart, and no cable. Electronics hobbyists have that stuff in a box somewhere, so paying for it again would just kind of waste their money.

However, from the point of view of an electronics hobbyist, I just look at the web site and think "where the fuck is the datasheet?" I don't order $1 parts, let alone $25 parts, without first looking into what kind of bullshit is involved in using it.

I see it has some GPIO pins, but there's no mention of their capabilities (analog/digital, are they all I/O capable or only some input and some output, etc.) and so I'm left to guess that I could probably do something with it. I guess.

However, I can also look at the datasheet for an AT89S52 and see exactly what's involved in using it, and at $1.75 a piece, I can order a dozen of them for $25 so if I break a few it's no big deal. ...and I did, and they're quite useful little things. At $1 a piece (they were cheaper when I bought them) you can toss one into any project. I used one along with an FT245RL to build a USB programmer for the chips (which I programmed via my parallel port since I didn't have a programmer yet). Since then I've generally be using them to interface with my computer, by connecting them to FT245RL and programming them to read from SPI ADC chips or some other digital chips. They're actually quite ideal for filling the gap between a PC and the electronics world. PCs lack I/O ports, and generally aren't very good at real time tasks. The little CPU in the AT89S52 can do real-time tasks then send the data off to the PC via the FT245RL which has a 64-byte buffer. I once used it to build an eight channel EEG, with it simply doing the timing so that the samples were read at the correct rate, and driving the SPI bus of the ADC chips. ...and that in-circuit programmability is wonderful since, if my code doesn't work, I just type new code and run the command to program it -- I don't even have to touch the electronics.

However, as for the Raspberry Pi, I don't know what I'd do with it. Presently I'm using one of the AT89S52 to gather wet/dry bulb measurements to monitor humidity levels. The data is sent to my computer, where ploticus turns it into a graph that an HTML page in my web browser constantly refreshes. I suppose I could try to do that, but the Raspberry Pi has no RTC, and thus can't properly collect the data without another computer involved. So either way I have to use my PC, and the Pi costs $35 (if I want that network port so I can get the time) or $25 and some clever hack to let it communicate with my computer to send the data there since it has no way to time stamp it. ...or I can use my AT89S52 + FT245RL solution for about $6. (Hey, if the Pi can ignore the costs of cables, power supplies, and SD cards, I can ignore the cost of a USB socket, cable, power supply, and a home-made circuit board. ...or actually, I don't even need the power supply because those two chips aren't going to draw 100 mA, so it can be USB powered.)

I do see people on the internet amused by using an Arduino to make an LED flash. Perhaps the Pi is marketed towards those types.

Z80s at 15MHz must be getting harder to get, too. They're already using 150KB of RAM and limiting it to 24k, too. At some point, you might as well upgrade it.

You can still get brand-new 65C02s (now at 14 MHz); a quick shows Mouser has them in stock. I'd think the Z80 would be similarly available, especially given all of the embedded systems that have used it over the past few decades.

In order to target the system, they will need to have some understanding of the equipment. Are they willing to pay the money to get the equipment?

Why assume they play by the rules? Do they have the ability to hack in to at least one system out of tens of thousands that would give them access to the equipment?

Anyhow, you can order potential target chips online for a pittance:
http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductors/Programmable-Logic-ICs/_/N-3oh8v?Keyword=PLC&FS=True

For got about the TI Launchpad.

Here you go. 8 pots, 2 linear resistors, a TI Launchpad and enclosure for $30.

http://www.mouser.com/ProjectManager/ProjectDetail.aspx?AccessID=5eac8f8e53

Figure out how you want to communicate (USB, UART, etc) and write the code (just a huge while loop reading the pins) and send it out over your selected interface.

The slow, painful death of Radio Shack is more than symbolic. I see it as completely parallel to the slow and painful death of intellectualism in our national culture.

Or, you know, that Internet thing: http://www.digikey.com/ http://www.newark.com/ http://www.mouser.com/

I'm currently getting mountains of spam exhorting me to remodel my home, buy a new patio deck, buy business cards, even find a new apartment. Stuff that looks like junk mail I'd get on paper, except that it's cluttering up my email. Lots comes from some filth calling themselves Eclipse Media Online, who hope I enjoyed receiving their garbage. Yeah, right.

I actually do like getting email from companies I do business with, everybody from Mouser to Sephora. Emails from Barefoot Tess tend to be hard on my bank account. :-)

...laura

You don't even need special resist pens. You can use ordinary indelible markers to draw on the copper and then use it as resist to etch the boards. Done it myself several times. OK if you only need one board for prototype. As far as the original article goes, silver loaded paint has been around for ages >40 years. It is called silver print. Not sure I would describe it as a way to make cheap circuits since I remember it being pretty expensive. See http://www.mouser.com/search/refine.aspx?N=4294953381&Keyword=silver%20print 0.3oz is $22 for the pen-type dispenser.

Now, there's no choice but to go to DigiKey and Mouser, and figure out how I'm going to meet their minimum order requirements, when all I wanted was $5 worth of stuff

Um... what's DigiKey's minimum order again? I regularly buy small quantities of stuff from them. AFAIK, they have no minimum order. And they're fast and reliable.

(Again posting as AC cuz I'm lazy).

I guess Mouser dropped their Minimum Order, too! Cool!

Compared to Arduino's Atmel (2,32kB) the Maple STM32/ARM (20, 120kB) has way more RAM and flash (also far more than the TI MSP430 series, while not requiring that much more power). The Maple RET6 gives 64kB SRAM /512kB flash and DACs rather than just PWM for only $10 more than the regular version. A version with FPGA on-board is in development. The Maple Mini which is just 2.02 x 0.72 inches and emulates a 40-pin DIP for breadboarding should be shipping in a few days.

Maples are capable of driving QVGA LCDs, doing modest signal processing (see LeafLabs wiki for a guitar pedal project), controlling motors, doing data-logging and complex control and much more.

While they can be pressed into service for doing traditional computing, microcontrollers are distinguished mainly by their built-in peripherals such as timers, ADC, DAC,sensors, encoders, communications etc. The STM / Cortex devices do very well on this measure, particularly the higher-end parts. The Maple forums are active and helpful; some ongoing topics are on using real-time OSes and interfacing with SD card flash memory.

For a cheaper start to working with the STM ARM chips Mouser carries a rather nice-looking, hackableboard with USB, LCD, blinkenlights, buttons, and capacitive touch sensor slider for just $15.

Sure there are. How about Mouser Electronics?

Not trying to be a hater here, but seriously: you can get a Silicon Labs 8051-based kit, with a micro that has onboard DACs, ADCs, comparators, full-speed USB, and all of the good stuff one gets with an 8051, PLUS the JTAG debug/programming dongle (which Arduino kits DO NOT HAVE) for a hundred bucks.

OK, so the free SiLabs IDE is for Windows only. But they publish the programming interface protocol (C2 for the example '340 device), they fully support SDCC (as well as Keil, IAR and others) in their debugger and SiLabs support is excellent.

And you can buy the JTAG dongle for $35, which is a steal, especially if you remember the cost of the old Nohau emulators.

Arduino is popular among people who don't do this for a living. Which is fine, but it didn't win anything.

Not trying to be a hater here, but seriously: you can get a Silicon Labs 8051-based kit, with a micro that has onboard DACs, ADCs, comparators, full-speed USB, and all of the good stuff one gets with an 8051, PLUS the JTAG debug/programming dongle (which Arduino kits DO NOT HAVE) for a hundred bucks.

OK, so the free SiLabs IDE is for Windows only. But they publish the programming interface protocol (C2 for the example '340 device), they fully support SDCC (as well as Keil, IAR and others) in their debugger and SiLabs support is excellent.

And you can buy the JTAG dongle for $35, which is a steal, especially if you remember the cost of the old Nohau emulators.

Arduino is popular among people who don't do this for a living. Which is fine, but it didn't win anything.

Why would you drop $2k on a 40MHz 2-ch monochrome scope? Especially given that the USB cable for it is $167?

$2150 get you a Tek TDS2014B - 4-ch 100MHz benchtop DSO with USB access.
handheld scopes generally have fewer channels, fewer trigger types, and smaller displays.

I think software/firmware people really need at least 4-ch. You can use it to look at the signals for SPI or the USB data + clock and I2C signals plus another channel can really help in multi-master setups. Sure you could save all that stuff for the logic analyzer, but LAs are expensive and a chore to configure. Scopes are relatively straight forward and good enough for more serial signals if you get a moderately fast one (100MHz or more). Save the LAs for nasty things like big buses. Dedicated I2C, SPI and USB debuggers are worthwhile if you get serious as they are not terribly expensive ($150-300 each for low speed versions). Although if you're doing USB on a microcontroller and think you have a signal integrity or power issue a scope is your best friend!

4-bit microcontrollers are still made.

Have you tried an electronics contact cleaner like Blue Shower? It's a little pricey, but works well for cleaning electronics.

http://mouser.com/ProductDetail/Techspray/1667-8S/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvJqaFk9BIiv7vkq027uiu6ZZJKZ6s0jAI%3D

I'll see your soldering nostalgia and raise you a WIRE WRAP TOOL! :)

I would suggest a project that is simple enough to understand, yet has a demonstrable practical circuit that they may choose to use after the class is over. One idea that quickly comes to mind is a simple (2-3-transistor or 2-3-per-channel (stereo)) audio amplifier, suitable to powering a small speaker, with a jack to connect to MP3 player.

It demonstrates one of two basic modes of operation for transistors, one of the most important semiconductor devices (diodes and ICs are others) that is a building block for analog (and digital) electronics. The other mode is when the transistor acts as a switch BTW.

You can cover electron and conventional current flow, waves (sound), and feedback as physics topics.

For the parts, using a mail-order suppler like Digi-Key, Mouser, or Jameco (US / Canada) you should be able to buy the parts for about $5 including the connector and a small speaker.

See Simple 3 Transistor Audio Amp (50 milliwatt) from Bill Bowden's hobby circuits web site.

I'm a much bigger fan of Mouser Electronics. Awesome selection... in fact, I'd go so far as to say amazing. Prices are very good as well (not always rock bottom, but damn close), and I've always received my stuff quickly from them without error.