Why is $4.25 too expensive? We are talking about prototyping not production.
In the US $4.25 is a cup of coffee.
in Kosovo (Europe) is cup of cofee (capouccino,machiato,french cofee,us cofee) is about 0.50 us
i agree with @Austrian_Dude too expensive for one button (or in ebay you can buy keyes studio sensor kit clones 37 in 1 for 13 - 17 usd it include button switch too, and different sensors too)
or groove
Why I2C for a button?, that’s illogical in prototyping. You prototype to probably make something, your not gonna create your design and have an I2C button, you will 100% find a free interrupt pin to use a button
1 Like
prototyping from which clientele?
where are all the customers who need such modules?
if the clientele really needs those things why was gadgeteer never successful?
just asking
Because Microsoft dropped support and did not open source critical components?
? which ones
Gadgeteer was not successful before Microsoft did this
We have made millions of dollars selling gadgeteer. But for us to take netmf and turn it into TinyCLR and to make modern secure SITCore hardware we had to drop everything, including gadgeteer.
Look around, many years later and people still talk about gadgeteer. Many have not moved on. I am not saying gadgeteer is the best way, but it solved a problem that nothing else has answered to just yet.
Why do many still love gadgeteer? Why not use one of the many, many available options? What system out there solves the connectivity problem (software and hardware) like USB does in a PC? Why use a $5 plug and play button if you can just wire a $0.1 button? All good questions and everyone has a different answer!
1 Like
(Image removed)
Sorry, had to remove that image… Funny but can’t be here 
But they are both “arms”… Ferrari and Fiat have 4 wheels and both get you to work.
Same drawings for Fiat vs Ferrari 
It’s a matter of needs and feelings, I think. And money sometimes, of course.
Can we also have the holeyboard back? Make the holey board in 3 or 4 dimensions and everyone can start prototyping again …
My 2 cents worth.
I think Gadgeteer, by design or fluke, hit a market sweet spot. It was the combination of C# coding, an embedded NET environment, and easy to use hardware. It was a middle ground between the C++ embedded world and the entry level Arduino. It did four things: it gave software people easy access to a wide range of hardware, it gave hardware people easy access to feature rich software, it allowed the software/hardware people to focus on the solution rather than the mechanics, and importantly this was all in an environment that could translate into commercial product and job skills.
You could argue that this can be achieved today using development boards and available modules. True and I do this regularly. What was nice about Gadgeteer hardware was the cables provided a more robust prototype than jumper wires, the mounting options of Holey Moley boards and modules with mounting points gave flexibility to layout. In some cases a Gadgeteer “prototype” was very useable in the field. For true productisation there will always be an optimisation step, but this is common to all prototyping systems.
Where Gadgeteer failed, in my opinion, was the whole environment never reached a stable point. This was mainly on the embedded NET side but there was a significant turn over of processing boards as well. It got close to having all the essential capability to serve both hobby and professional users but then something would change and there would be a feeling of starting over again. This made it a hard “sell” (Gadgeteer as a whole, or just the C# and NETMF/TinyCLR aspect) into a work environment, particularly against an established embedded development environment. I acknowledge the fantastic work from Gus and the GHI team. The long term support they offer is great, but this is a different to the long term stability of the concept and maturity of the development environment. I am excited with TinyCLR 2 and SITCore, I hope that this marks that stability point where a personal or business return on investment can be achieved. I appreciate the delicate balancing act required by Gus and the team to continue the embedded NET concept, while ensuring a long term viable business in challenging times.
I should add that this community is also a strength to the whole Gadgeteer / TinyCLR concept. It is the sum of the pieces that makes Gadgeteer what it is, not a specific element. Which makes answering Gus’s original survey difficult.
5 Likes
I had / have them in 3 different sizes 
1 Like
This is really cool. If you get some of that including the quattro in your shop, than the gadgeteer is back! Perhaps even other designers will start creating modules too… nice. Qwiic solutions can also benefit from the holeyboard if they simply adhere to the holyboard grid, perhaps with only one or two screws?? C# is going places…
@Drovers_Dog thank you for the great reply and the fantastic feedback.
It is very wrong to say one system is the answer to every need but we are here learning from the community’s thoughts on what we did right and what we did wrong. We think we know the answer but only the community can decide if we were correct or not.
What size holey board do you want?
I will go box diving and see what I have here.