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The first chapter discusses the appearance of the first microcontrollers, the advantage of Arduino, the history of the creation and development of the Arduino platform.

1.1. Arduino – what is it?

The appearance of the first microcontrollers marked the beginning of a new era in the development of microprocessor technology. The presence of most system devices in one case made the microcontroller similar to a regular computer. In the literature, they are called single-chip microcomputers. Accordingly, the desire to use microcontrollers as ordinary computers appeared almost with their appearance. But this desire was restrained by many factors. For example, to assemble a device on a microcontroller, you need to know the basics of circuit design, the device and operation of a particular processor, be able to program in assembly language and manufacture electronic equipment. Programmers, debuggers and other auxiliary devices will also be required. As a result, you cannot do without a huge amount of knowledge and expensive equipment. This situation did not allow many amateurs to use microcontrollers in their projects for a long time. Now, with the advent of devices that make it possible to work with microcontrollers without having a serious material base and knowledge of many subjects, everything has changed. An example of such a device is the Arduino project of Italian developers.

Arduino and its clones are kits consisting of a ready-made electronic unit and software. The electronic unit here is a printed circuit board with an installed microcontroller and a minimum of elements necessary for its operation. In fact, the Arduino electronic unit is an analog of the motherboard of a modern computer. It has connectors for connecting external devices, as well as a connector for communicating with a computer, through which the microcontroller is programmed. The features of Atmel’s ATmega microcontrollers used allow programming without the use of special programmers. All you need to create a new electronic device is an Arduino board, a communication cable and a computer. The second part of the Arduino project is software for creating control programs. It combines the simplest development environment and a programming language, which is a variant of the C/C++ language for microcontrollers. It has added elements that allow you to create programs without studying the hardware. So to work with Arduino, it is almost enough to know only the basics of programming in C / C++. Created for Arduino and many libraries containing code that works with various devices.

1.2. The advantage of Arduino!

The user of a modern computer does not think about the functioning of individual parts of the PC. He just runs the right programs and works with them. Similarly, Arduino allows the user to focus on the development of projects, rather than on studying the device and the principles of functioning of individual elements. There is no need to create complete boards and modules. The developer can use ready-made expansion boards or simply directly connect the necessary elements to the Arduino. All other efforts will be directed to the development and debugging of the control program in a high-level language. As a result, not only professionals got access to the development of microprocessor devices, but also just amateurs to do something with their own hands. The availability of ready-made modules and software libraries allows non-professionals in electronics to create ready-made working devices to solve their tasks. And the options for using Arduino are limited only by the capabilities of the microcontroller and the available version of the board, and, of course, by the imagination of the developer.

1.3. History of Arduino creation

In 2002, programmer Massimo Banzi was hired as an associate professor at the Interaction Design Institute of Ivrea (IDII) to promote new ways of developing interactive projects. However, a tiny budget and limited access time to the laboratory base reduced his efforts to almost nothing. In the projects, Banzi used the BASIC Stamp device developed by the California company Parallax. Stamp was a small printed circuit board with a power source, a microcontroller, memory and I/O ports placed on it for connection to various equipment. Programming of the microcontroller was carried out in the BASIC language. BASIC Stamp had two problems: a lack of computing power and a fairly high price – the board with the main components cost about $ 100. And the Banzi team decided to independently create a board that would meet all their needs. Banzi and his staff set themselves the goal of creating a device that is a simple, open and easily accessible development platform, with a price – no more than $ 30 – acceptable for students and youth pockets. They also wanted to highlight their device with something against the background of others. Therefore, in contrast to other manufacturers saving on the number of PCB pins, they decided to add as many as possible, and also made their board blue, unlike conventional green boards. The product that the team created consisted of cheap and affordable components – for example, it was based on the ATmega328 microcontroller. But the main task was to guarantee the operation of the device according to the plug-and-play principle, so that the user, taking the board out of the box and connecting it to the computer, could immediately get to work.

The first prototype of the board was made in 2005, it had a simple design and was not yet called Arduino. A little later, Massimo Banzi came up with the idea to call it so – after the name of a bar belonging to him, located in the city of Ivrea. The Arduino brand, without any advertising and attracting marketing funds, quickly gained high popularity on the Internet. Since the beginning of distribution, more than 250 thousand Arduino kits have been sold, and this is not taking into account the many clones. There are more than two hundred distributors of Arduino products in the world – from large firms such as SparkFun Electronics to small companies working for the local market. Today, the Arduino platform is represented not by one board, but by a whole family of them. In addition to the original project, called Arduino Uno, new models with more powerful means on the board are called Arduino Mega, compact models are Arduino Nano, boards in a waterproof case are LilyPad Arduino, and a new board with a 32—bit Cortex – M3 ARM processor is Arduino Due.

The Arduino project owes its success to the Processing language and the Wiring platform that existed before it. Arduino inherited one strong feature from these projects – a user-friendly development environment. Before the advent of Arduino, programming microcontrollers required complex and routine pre-training. And with Arduino, even those who have no experience with electronic devices can now join the world of electronics. Beginners no longer have to spend a lot of time studying related material – they can quickly develop a prototype that will be fully operational.

According to Massimo Banzi, fifty years ago, writing software required a team of people in white coats who knew everything about electronic lamps. Now, with the advent of Arduino, many people have the opportunity to create electronic devices on their own. According to one of the members of the Banzi team, telecommunications engineer David Quartills, the philosophy of Arduino is precisely that anyone who wants to understand electronics can immediately start studying it, instead of first learning algebra.