I think Arduino is a great platform. I started with Assembly and Intel and it was not as productive ..well more difficult to get going. At the time Microchip was the more hobby based option, but it was still nothing like today.
As you know the heart of the Arduino development board is the ATmega microcontroller from Atmel. I find it interesting that the Micro Chip company bought out Atmel, so these hobby boards are again using Microchip parts.
It is neat how Arduino made the Wiring platform and other open-source platforms like Processing more available.
I used to try and stay genuine Arduino, and then came the drama (Arduino vs Arduino). These days I think the clones are a great buy. The only thing I look out for are the counterfeits. In other words it is based on open-source, so anyone can build them, however some try to copy and also claim to be original. You can usually spot a counterfeit fairly easy, as true Arduinos typically have a gold poly switch, at least the UNO and MEGA.
--Great article!
Thanks for reply, means a lot to me that someone actually read this stuff :)
Iam not that into electronics but like to use it when i got chance so Iam lacking a lot of background knowledge and its fascinating to see how tech has improved over the years and becomes eventually available to whole wold.
It is simply amazing what Arduino can do and all in such small dimensions and even more with Raspberry, PLC and other controllers.
On the clone thing, as Im on student budget and all this is just for fun not anything work related and what would work for longer period of time, but if I wold build something to last I would use probably original.