Born in 2012, the FEZ Hydra was the most powerful, EAGLE designed, OSHW open source, GCC capable, NETMF board. Selling at near cost, it is a great way to dig into the porting kit and start learning the internals of NETMF. Unfortunately, NETMF 4.3 is where the road ends for the beloved FEZ Hydra. With great respect, we have to say goodbye.
However, we can’t just say goodbye, we have to say goodbye in true nerd fashion! We are gathering ideas for a retirement celebration for our old friend. Maybe create a last time buy special edition? Maybe a FEZ Hydra contest? We are sure that you will have many ideas on how we can do this.
Please note, although the FEZ Hydra is retiring, the three-headed beast can be resurrected using the GCC compiling instructions found below.
GHI makes great products, I appreciate and respect all your offers that are closed source.
However I felt that the Hydra was the biggest contribution to the NETMF community by GHI. Hydra provided everything to work with the NETMF core (aka Porting kit). I have learnt a lot and done a lot with this board and am sure that many others in the community have the same thoughts to share. Not to mention the amount of fun I have had with Linux on this board.
If this board goes away, it is going to create a void for some of us and I am not happy to know that there will be no continuity for the NETMF 4.4 and beyond.
I can use the STM32 Discovery board but there is no open reference implementation supporting LCD and external memory.
I on behalf of the community request GHI to offer a open source option that people can use with the stock NETMF firmware. Something that is similar to the Kiel board that the NETMF team uses as the reference board.
It may not be possible to copy the board but I am sure GHI can create something similar with the same STM micro, flash, RAM, PHY, LCD.
I am hoping that the pricing can be right as not as exorbitant as the Kiel board.
GHI need not support the board with firmware, users should head over to the NETMF Git to get what they need.
I was sad to see the support for Cerb go away and now the Hydra too
Thank you GHI for everything you have done so far. I am sure that you are taking the best business decisions and the community will support you no matter what
do I read this as “there will be a replacement board”