The FEZ Medusa...how small can we go?

Press Announcements
1

How small can a Gadgeteer mainboard be? A year ago, we created the FEZ Medusa with 4 sockets. To keep the cost low, at its core, it ran Arduino instead of NETMF, which automatically meant no Visual Studio and debugging capabilities. That was before the NETMF G30 SoC was available. Today we are announcing the FEZ Medusa II with the NETMF G30 SoC at its core. It also includes 6 sockets that are packed with options.

Unfortunately, the current Gadgeteer software core will not fit on the tiny G30 SoC. The FEZ Medusa II will have to be programmed with pure NETMF. This means, no Gadgeteer designer, no plug and play. However, any Gadgeteer driver for any module can modified to use NETMF directly, a simple step but it does require some experience. We even included a entry in the Pins class in the 2015 SDK to make this even easier to port the Gadgeteer driver to NETMF.

The good news is that we are working with Microsoft on the next version of .NET Gadgeteer. A leaner version that will not only fit all NETMF devices, but will also run on Windows 10 devices, such as the Raspberry PI 2. Until then, we recommend FEZ Medusa II to advanced users only.

While not currently available for sale yet, a few of the FEZ Medusas will be available to close customers and community members for evaluation.

FEZ Medusa II : http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/542
G30 SoC: http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/539

8 Likes
2

For those of you on my nice list and not the naught list like @ IanLee, then mention ā€œFEZ Medusa IIā€ in the comments and we will randomly select orders to include a free FEZ Medusa II. ;D

3

:snooty: :snooty: :snooty: :snooty: :snooty: :snooty: :snooty:
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II
FEZ Medusa II

1 Like
4

FEZ Medusa II

NETMF and Tiny!

5

@ Everyoneā€¦let me clarify, when you place your next order then you mention FEZ Medusa II in the comments section of that order. And now you see why Ian is on the bad list! 8)

6

Now that is good news. Looking forward to a lean meaner even better butt kicking version of Gadgeteer that runs everywhere!!!

7

congrats GHI.

So small, I canĀ“t see it.

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

8

@ Gary - NETMF on a Raspberry PI? WHAT? :clap: To me that is the big story here! Can we have CAN channels with the GHI drivers?? Am I living in a dream world?? :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I donā€™t qualify for the last sentence of that paragraph, but the first two make me very excited!

10

@ Diesel Engineer - gadgeteer, not netmf. There is a full .Net on RPI2.

11

@ Gus - Gadgeteer is just an extension of NETMF correct? I can work with that.

12

Thereā€™s a lot more great news than just a product announcement in here!

FEZ Medusa II

@ Gary - whatā€™s the Mode jumper for?

13

@ Diesel Engineer - Gus beat me to it.

14

Awesome! Now if I could find a small RF package to go with the FEZ Medusa II Iā€™d be happy.

And I mean smaller than Justinā€™s RF module.

15

[title]FEZ Medusa II[/title]

16

How come I can only press ā€˜likeā€™ once?

17

@ mcalsyn - The Ritalin must be working :smiley:

1 Like
18

@ Bill Gates - Yes, but I am careful not to use company-supplied goods when working on moonlighting projects.

1 Like
19

@ Mcalsyn
Cut Deep, and quickly ! Zzzzzing !

20

This is great.

When we are going this small it might be relevant to work on some innovative solution to have one physical socket (which takes a lot of space) map to several other (otherwise conflicting) sockets. Maybe a dipswitch or something (that does not take space) to change routing?