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gfwilliamson Espruino -- a JavaScript Arduino

This should work on the larger Arduino boards (the Due and 2560) and it already works on a bunch of other hardware too.

To be honest the new board is just to do something a bit different - and to give backers of the KickStarter something fun that they couldn't just go out and buy.

gfwilliamson Espruino -- a JavaScript Arduino

Johnny-Five requires a PC (it runs JavaScript on the host computer). On Espruino you can program it, then unplug the PC and it keeps working.

One of the big benefits (apart from running on its own) is that you don't have the latency of USB, so can respond to things far more quickly.

gfwilliamson Espruino -- a JavaScript Arduino

Hi, I'm the guy behind it... Just wanted to stand up for it a bit - the -uino postfix is really because of the hobby electronics association. I wanted to do something a bit different by adding the prototype area, and I found the Arduino form factor was too big for any sensible hand-held projects. The board is still small enough that it can sit on a simple adaptor PCB for Arduino shields though. I'll try and put one online when the campaign ends.

Also port initialisation is automatic so pinMode is not required - it's a huge potential gotcha for learners, and it seemed wise to remove the need for it. You can still use it if you want to though.

gfwilliamson JavaScript right on the hardware

To be fair, the Espruino JavaScript interpreter manages this pretty well (in around 8kB of RAM). http://www.espruino.com

gfwilliamson JavaScript right on the hardware

I've been working on another embedded JavaScript project - first posted on here almost a year ago, and soon to go on KickStarter: http://www.espruino.com

This is really interesting though. It looks like they've got linux and node.js into 32mb RAM, which is seriously impressive. It seemed as if people were trying and failing on Carambola (but that may have been because it didn't use an ARM CPU...)

gfwilliamson Ask HN: How to make a living from Open Source Software on Open Source Hardware?

Thanks - that's a really neat solution - however presumably someone would complain if I called that 'Open Source'?

I think most people will be smart enough not to care as long as they can legally do everything they want to do with the source code, but there will be a few vocal people who will produce huge amounts of negative publicity if it is not 'truly Open Source'.