[brk]

For their time, the BS1 and BS2 were considered pretty open, powerful, and cheap compared to the other options out there (PICs with expensive programmers and steep learning curves, etc.). Being able to drive a 44780 LCD, read a rotary encoder, and do basic serial I/O in the same hobbyist project were well out of the grasp of the common hobbyist in the late 90's, but the BS2 made all those things possible for $50.

Arduino hasn't really set the bar that high, it's the next/current evolution of something that has been going on ever since the commercialization of the first NP junction.

Like the Stamps before it, the Arduino is a neat prototyping device, but not something you can build a 'product' around with any great scale beyond a hobbyist market. The biggest difference in that in its heyday the Stamp didn't have the full power of the Internet to make people aware of them. You mostly had usenet or publications like Nuts N Volts to expose people to the possibilities of simple micros. The Arduino has gotten great exposure because of the Internet, but in the grand scheme of things hasn't really done all THAT much. The article on Make references 100000-150000 Arduinos sold. Maxim has given away more PICs than that as free samples.

Sure, the Arduino is neat and cool, but the fawning over it you see on sites like Make heavily skews reality. 30 years ago if we had the Internet this blog post would have been "Why the 555 won and why it's here to stay"

[ladyada]

1. the BS was also revolutionary, and obviously the arduino references it, but the BS did not evolve in the last 10 years.

2. you could say the same thing about computers, crystal radios and solar panels, this is a really weak argument. we are talking about a specific product area and a group, Arduino is a great improvement, hell even having cross-platform capability (one of many details) much less a simple IDE was a pipe-dream.

3. "in the grand scheme of things", nothing except photosynthesis has been very effective. if you have a scheme in mind, you should specify it. yes Microchip gives away a lot of PICs, but they give away PICs to EEs and companies. the 150K people here are -not- all EEs, they are mostly -other- kinds of people. they are not people making products. people who make products never ever use dev boards in the final design, but at least with Arduino its bare AVR so you can reuse the code on raw chips whereas with BS you are screwed.

4. the 555 did win and its here to stay; it is a mainstay of electrical engineering and is used in products all the time. the LM101, ironically, did not.