Main Site Documentation

Got the last SFE Domino

#1

I got the last Domino from SFE, 4 of them sold today including the one i bought! Looks like people are waking up to FEZ power.

I bought a bunch of other sensors and the Arduino inventors kit (not my money, so will be a good comparison, plus a range of sensors).

I’ll be integrating this with Flexinol (shape memory alloy) immediately for my client as well as adding UBX to the GPS driver, stepper control and a bunch of other sensors independently of the work for my client.

I’m excited about both programming and electronics again, yay :slight_smile:

#2

Yes sparkfun had sold hundreds of FEZ Dominos in a very short time. We have more going their way shortly.

#3

Great news, glad they are working out so well as a distributor for you :slight_smile: I don’t even remember seeing the domino make their front page. Perhaps they showed up while i was off snowboarding - otherwise i would have bought one immediately haha.

#4

Ahh yes was fun comment day on the sparkfun when it was posted. Some say ignorance it bliss In that case I sure can’t agree with that. The Microsoft hate beer goggles sometimes need to be removed to see the bigger picture.

#5

Haha, yeah well 10yrs ago when i was writing PHP/PERL for a job i was a linux hippie and loved my php and perl something terrible. I started programming with ASP 3.0, and when i saw a ASP.Net 1.0 book from Wrox (based on the beta) i went ahead and bought it. A week later i was back on the microsoft bandwagon wondering how i’d ever lived without .net.

Give them some time and a bit of blunt force trauma, they’ll see the light eventually. Hating MS is just easier for some than realising they’ve been doing things the hard way all this time.

I’m planning some big ideas at the moment for helping get users into FEZ. Long live .Net salute

#6

I’m pretty sure the Domino holds the record for biggest SFE product comment thread.

#7

I develop on alot of platforms including some embedded Linux i understand the desire to speak out for your platform of choice. Hell I even started a ISP in the mid 90’s with boca serial card and linux. It was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Till i got my first Us robotics box and i just plugged it into the muxer. After months of setting up a solution it took me 5 minutes to surpass it. The point is you don’t always have to make every part yourself. Understand how it works sure. I sure as hell did not make the mouse I used or write its firmware or make the power supply’s the servers ran on.
I do know how both of them work and that is good enough.

#8

Sorry Chris - I know one at least that’s longer - the Cellular shield for Arduino is 94 comments vs 92 for the Fez. :slight_smile:

#9

just read all 92 comments on SFE lol. What a bunch of whiny little girls. I love the turn around on a couple of guys though. Some total haters in there, and then they get their domino and have a total reversal “as much as i hate to admit it, i really like this” sort of thing. Funny as.

#10

To some Arduino and open source is a religion, and Microsoft is the devil.

:hand:

#11

The funny part is that 99% of the “OMG OPEN SOURCE” people have probably never even looked at the Arduino’s source code.

#12

Indeed. And arduino is something they “understand”. Moving to a other board could make them look silly to “all their friends”

Stupid kids, I won’t even take the time to respond to such ignorance. :smiley:

#13

They get so angry when you say Arduino is perfect to blink LEDs and not much more :slight_smile: Not saying Arduino is bad but what is it beside an IDE that uses GCC in the background? It is good since beginners wouldn’t know how to use GCC but to any professional this is useless since they lack debugging. Plus the processor is too little…come on, we are in 2010 people, why use anything less than 32 bit?

#14

I have used many small embedded systems. I have boxes full of development systems which I played with and then stopped because they were not fun to work with.

Then I found the Arduino. It was fun to use. I was able to do object orientated programming using C++. I was able to live with the ide if I used an external editor. I did have problems with some of the drivers being buggy. But, overall it was a good experience.

I don’t remember how I found the FEZs. But, here was an environment (VS) which I worked with for years, and C# which is my language of choice. Plus, there is great support and the wonderful ebook. The ebook is my FEZ bible.

Given the same problem FEZs are orders of magnitude easier and faster to use.

I consider myself to be both a FEZ and an Arduino fan. I will use the platform which best matches the problem. I DO NOT HAVE TO CHOOSE!

Viva Darwin!

#15

I found the FEZ through one of Sparkfun’s “new product” tweets. I have plenty of Arduino’s around but I only use them for their FTDI chip nowadays.

#16

Similarly i have the AVR stk500, avr isp2, mikroelectronica pic programmers, 2 mikroelectronica dev boards for dspic (easy and big), stm circle, parallax’s propeller dev kit (nice idea, crap language), microchip pic programmers, jtag among others. Sure i’ve developed projects on it - but as others have said it’s not much fun - you lose more hair debugging than any doing anything else i can think of, and they tend to be a PITA just to get something going (primarily in making sure you have all the fuses and clocks set correctly).

With FEZ, i can see myself implementing projects i’ve been thinking about for years that i thought would take me months or even years to complete in just days/weeks. Some of them which i thought the hardware engineering (like SLR pano ball heads with stepper motors) would be the easiest part - now i’ve found FEZ i’ve come to realise that now the hardware seems difficult and the software is something i can write a lunch break or two, or on the train to work if i take my laptop/netbook.

#17

I too have used many micro-controllers such as the Basic Stamp, Propeller, PIC, Arduino, Tiny Tiger, FEZ (of course) and others. I found each has their strengths and weaknesses. The FEZ is very easy to use, especially since I’m a C# programmer by profession, but it doesn’t run in real time. On the other hand the Tiny Tiger can handle real time but is a PITA to use especially since the manual is translated from German and has tons of errors!

A co-worker introduced me to Tiny CLR for a source for future projects. Then I saw a call for Propeller programmers for the Gameo so I got involved. I’m glad I did!

I’m toying with putting Chess on the Domino since there is a c# version that fits into 52K of ram

#18

MarkH and blitted, have you added your quote to the website?
See this http://www.tinyclr.com/forum/15/702/

#19

I haven’t even got my FEZ yet! It’s still in Indianapolis. I have to get it before i feel i can write a testimonial otherwise i’m just as bad as the haters that haven’t touched the product :stuck_out_tongue:

Can’t wait to get it, just wait till you see what i have planned :wink:

#20

Geez FedEx annoy me. Why can’t everyone just use DHL?

Sep 6, 2010 11:05 AM At local FedEx facility BELMONT EAST AU
Package not due for delivery
Sep 6, 2010 10:58 AM On FedEx vehicle for delivery BELMONT EAST AU
Sep 6, 2010 10:04 AM At local FedEx facility BELMONT EAST AU
Package not due for delivery
Sep 6, 2010 7:34 AM At local FedEx facility BELMONT EAST AU
Sep 6, 2010 7:19 AM Int’l shipment release BELMONT AU

Basically, parcel arrives at facility from clearing customs, gets moved to another part of the facility, goes onto a truck - but it’s estimated delivery time was tomorrow - so the pull it off the truck and put it back into the facility. wtf?

At least this time it went AK, USA -> Singapore -> Perth which is normal - rather than via europe or china which adds about a week to the parcel’s shipping lol.