I think you're underrating what Arduino was in its time. They weren't selling an undifferentiated dev kit. The defining feature of the Arduino was that it:
* Plugged into USB (The Decimila, Duelmilnova, and the Uno)
* Had a software stack that worked on Mac, Windows, and Linux
* Had a software library that allowed people to drop in features to accomplish goals.
Arduino was a bad fit for an electrical engineer making a product, but it was an amazing fit for hobbyists and artists trying make a one-off project or presentation. This is the thing that the EE evangelists and gatekeepers could never seem to grok: No one* cares if it's taking 4 cycles or 120 cycles to blink the LED, or turn the servo. Sure it starts to matter if you're doing a dozen other things simultaneously, but most people just wanted the LED to blink.
Arduino was a miracle when it showed up. No toolchain to figure out because it was all just in the package. No bitmask decoding. No being rejected because you're not running Windows. The C Superset was surprisingly readable code for people who didn't have a programming background.
It is shameful the way that Arduino was pulled out of Wiring, without real credit and acknowledgement.
*Yes, there's the subset of people who were chasing efficiency, or who were interested in doing things "The right way™", but this was never the target audience for Arduino.
Living long enough to be seen as the villain. As you point out, Arduino did a lot of original work in integrating the toolchain that made it really simple to make something. They then stagnated and competing products shot past them (and that artist market).
The team was a group of academics who weren’t necessarily ready to build a business, but instead of letting it go when the market, they’ve made some desperate decisions. The industrial/commercial markets that a lot of people here use microcontroller boards for are well catered by much cheaper boards, and Arduino should’ve stuck to developing their original creative market with better tools.
> The team was a group of academics who weren’t necessarily ready to build a business, but instead of letting it go when the market, they’ve made some desperate decisions. The industrial/commercial markets that a lot of people here use microcontroller boards for are well catered by much cheaper boards, and Arduino should’ve stuck to developing their original creative market with better tools.
and do what? That market isn't used to pay for the tools (hell, they made "good enough" one that's free), and their boards are too pricy even for some one-offs
From donations like a normal nonprofit. They probably won't be able to pay the 7-figure salaries they were used to from the grift they had before, though.
* Plugged into USB (The Decimila, Duelmilnova, and the Uno)
* Had a software stack that worked on Mac, Windows, and Linux
* Had a software library that allowed people to drop in features to accomplish goals.
Arduino was a bad fit for an electrical engineer making a product, but it was an amazing fit for hobbyists and artists trying make a one-off project or presentation. This is the thing that the EE evangelists and gatekeepers could never seem to grok: No one* cares if it's taking 4 cycles or 120 cycles to blink the LED, or turn the servo. Sure it starts to matter if you're doing a dozen other things simultaneously, but most people just wanted the LED to blink.
Arduino was a miracle when it showed up. No toolchain to figure out because it was all just in the package. No bitmask decoding. No being rejected because you're not running Windows. The C Superset was surprisingly readable code for people who didn't have a programming background.
It is shameful the way that Arduino was pulled out of Wiring, without real credit and acknowledgement.
*Yes, there's the subset of people who were chasing efficiency, or who were interested in doing things "The right way™", but this was never the target audience for Arduino.