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I am not one of the electronic elites who dislike Arduinos, and dismisses them as 'just for atrists' who cannot solder. I made a career out of helping artists, other than myself, to bring their visions to reality with non-industrial kit in the 1980s and 1990s. I was just trying to temper the Arduino history presented by the writer by placing it in context of some other less famous, but widely disseminated precursors that brought me into the tech world before Arduino, and that seem deserving of some credit for bridging the techie/art world.
This is per my personal experience, and others like me in NY in the 1980s and 1990s. Though not opensource, the Stamps were open in many senses, and comparably priced, if not cheaper than an Arduino today, even if you adjust for inflation from 1996 ($29.99 -> $47.14 2016).
The BS-1 was released in 1992, almost 12 years before the OP started writing his thesis in 2003, and in 1992 RS-232 was the future!
Neither the BS-1 in 1992, or the BS-2 in 1995 had a clunky rs-232 connector on it. There was a dev board with a breadboarding area, and DB-9 connector if you used it; it was not needed, however, to do in-circuit programming or rapid prototyping. The BS-2 supported I2C and 1-Wire. The BS-2 was a 24 pin DIP chip layout. The cutest piece of kit then on the market, again smaller than most small, or mini Arduinos today, albeit with less chips on board. It was all SMC on the board. You could buy the breadboard with the RS-232 and a power plug jack for convenience, but I basically just used wires to the circuit for my serial programming connection, and programmed it in situ using the circuits 9V supply (battery or AC adapter).
Fun story for me with the BS-2: I was in one of the display windows at Saks Fifth Avenue NYC for Xmas 1996, with curtains drawn, while Whoopi Goldberg read the children's book the six or seven windows were themed in outside. I had 3 wires connected to my BS-2 in its circuit running, and hot downloaded the updated code minutes before she gave it over for the curtains to be drawn so the mechanical and pneumatic actuators could do their thing. All from one BS-2 per window. It worked great after a reset, and I stepped out of view seconds before the unveiling [1].
I also used non-industrial chips for an installation in NYC's Central Park Lake by the Bow Bridge (Whitney Biennial 2002 NYC) just after 9/11. Picture me rolling spools of wire by the bridge at dusk out of the back of my pickup truck. The NYPD sort of flipped at this sight, but that's another story!
For ADC I would use a single resistor and capacitor (RC), for quick and dirty ADC with some code, or a transistor for better ADC. If all of that was not sufficient I would use an ADC chip. I understand the Macs and Art crowd believe me. I was using PPC Macs, Windows, Minix and NeXT back then (1990s to early 2000s). When I rolled out more than a one-of-a-kind based on the BS-2, I would use the dev board to program quickly and then just pop it in the empty 24 pin DIP socket in my circuit (like a shield ;). ADCs were available on the early PIC chips before 2003 too, and there were some all-in-one plug-n-play boards then too.
I don't ascribe Arduino's success to the opensource aspect, as much as the take-off of the internet at the time. To Parallax's credit, they had some of the best documentation, and phone support, but in 1992 to 1997, dial-up and a low online population, did not allow it to take off. In early makers circles, if you could call it that before the term was coined, I relied on online datasheets and burned out chips! And limited online access and materials. I did belong to ECHO, (East Coast Hang Out of NYC - shout out to Stacy Horn and Phiber Optik - hmmm - Mark Abene!), which put me in touch with more diverse techies from all walks of life. I also subscribed to the first Processing bulletin board then, and exchanged coding ideas and asked questions. I made a business from 1997 to 2005 helping artists realize their visions with Stamps, PIC chips, Scenix chips, old printer motors, old PCs, all well before Arduino. I give Parallax a lot of credit for real hobbyist/artist innovations. Look at the multi-core Propeller chip they developed in-house that has been revised of late. This really should have been a blog post, my apologies... [1] http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/nydn-features/autumn-city-merry-menageries-big-stores-put-sugarplums-glass-article-1.746083
[2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcajvRZA8E0_ckfjqU1irYzOwbsYa2AjC
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