Its unclear what processor is in it. I suspect something very very cheap, as they are giving away tens of thousands of them this year alone.
(Not sure if everyone in the UK will agree with the BBC spending their license fee in this way – but perhaps its funded by the UK government not from the TV license (tax) that everyone in the UK has to pay.
See
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33409311
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5DIlaaNkvw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6YfP7dRP5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJPRMPAbL3Q
Edit.
After watching several of the video’s I posted a comment on the last one, as I think they really have not thought through their design.
They have positioned 2 big copper pads at the end, one is 3V and one is GND, and they expect kids to connect things via croc clips to the other big pads on the bottom of the board.
I can guarantee, either by accident or on purpose the 3V and GND will be shorted, and if the board is attached via its USB to the PC, there will be plenty of that magic blue smoke appearing.
Also, looking in the last video, it shows a cheap micro USBto connect the board to the PC for uploads. We know from experience with the Red and Blue pill boards, that any connector thats just attache via solder pads, like these micro USB ones, are prone to snapping off the board because of the stress applied via USB cables.
This is especially true in an educational environment.
These things are just not robust enough and I can envisage masses of them breaking in the first few weeks, with very little hope of repair.
I posted a comment on youtube to the Wired video, asking what the processor was, but perhaps at the moment they are all under an NDA.
They mentioned in one video that its Not Open Source Hardware, and its not currently for sale, its only available though the give away.
But in the future it may be available through not for profits.
I like the array of LEDs and the 2 buttons (not sure why it needs a separate reset button on the back), bluetooth (perhaps OK), IMU is OK
I suspect building an Arduino shield with the LEDs and bluetooth etc would have been a better option.
Goodness knows who is paying for this. They mentioned 1 Million boards, and they must be costing at least £1 each, probably £2 or more.
So thats £2M of your license fees being given away on some dubious experiment, when there are proven things like Arduino already in schools
https://hackaday.com/2015/07/07/the-bbc-microbit/
https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products … y/nRF51822
Thats interesting’
It gives a bit of an idea of cost e.g.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NRF51822-Blu … 35eca9a4f8
So definitely 1 million of them are going to cost the UK tax payers quite a lot of money
They’d be better off giving away ESP8266 boards, I suspect they are cheaper and more useful.
I wonder why they chose that particular processor, no doubt the result of many committee meetings and focus groups. 
I still think at least 25% will be in the bin after a few weeks because either the USB connector snapped off or they let out the magic smoke by shorting VCC and GND using the supplied croc clips
Sales plan
While the BBC instigated the project, other organisations – including the chip designer ARM, Barclays Bank, Samsung, Microsoft and Lancaster University – are also providing expertise and funds to bring the scheme to fruition.
In addition, the Wellcome Trust, ScienceScope and others will help prepare school teachers for the rollout, while volunteer-led groups, including Coderdojo and Code Club, have also promised support.
Although supplies will initially be limited to the schoolchildren qualifying for a free Micro Bit in late October, the BBC has confirmed that the computers will go on sale to others in the UK and overseas before the end of the year.
It also intends to make the machine’s specifications open source.
They also make reference to an online tool and also to Scratch…
Ray
I wonder if that includes *everything* including board designs, or just the software.
All sorts of teasers, but a distinct lack of real information.
Either way, I can’t see how its going to be a serious alternative to the Arduino, unless the expansion port is what you need to plug it into to use SPI or I2C or Serial etc.
I’m sure the processor is cable enough, 16k RAM 256k Flash (more flash than they need really),
I’m not sure how much use the BLE will be unless they release some apps to integrate into the firmware. Actually its strange they’ve not already mentioned apps, as there is little point in having BLE if you don’t want to communicate with mobile phones.
Edit.
Just as a matter of interest, I’ve ordered 2 of these NRF51822 board from eBay, as it appears to be the processor that the BBC board uses.
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Either way, I can’t see how its going to be a serious alternative to the Arduino, unless the expansion port is what you need to plug it into to use SPI or I2C or Serial etc. I’m sure the processor is cable enough, 16k RAM 256k Flash (more flash than they need really),
I’m not sure how much use the BLE will be unless they release some apps to integrate into the firmware. Actually its strange they’ve not already mentioned apps, as there is little point in having BLE if you don’t want to communicate with mobile phones.
It uses web based compilation provided by Microsoft
https://www.touchdevelop.com/microbit
Basically, whatever language you program in, including their “Touch Script” language and including some visual languages (drag and drop blocks), its then translated to C++, which is compiled online and you are prompted to download the new binary.
You then have to save the binary, before dragging it onto the Micro bit, that appears as USB mass storage
I actually like the idea of USB mass storage as an upload method, it has been used a lot, and I guess its something we could look at if anyone was interested. But DFU is equally good.
The thing that gets me, is the lack of seamlessness in the dev process.
Development cycles are going to be painfully slow, unless the BBC thow pots of money at the microsoft servers, and the downloading and copying of binaries is tedious.
I know I’m not alone, in doing compiling and testing small changes very frequently. I’ve discussed this practice and its very common among the dev’s that I know, and some of them are way smarter than I am.
I guess its a form of mini unit testing, ie write a small block of code, upload and test it.
I remember the old old days, back in my first job, the company I was working for still used EPROMS which had to sit in the UV eraser for 15+ mins to clear them, so we had a big stack of them always in the eraser and cycled them around so we didn’t have to wait after compiling to burn into the EPROM and then stick the prom in the board.
How times have changed
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Development cycles are going to be painfully slow, unless the BBC thow pots of money at the microsoft servers, and the downloading and copying of binaries is tedious.
I know I’m not alone, in doing compiling and testing small changes very frequently. I’ve discussed this practice and its very common among the dev’s that I know, and some of them are way smarter than I am.
I guess its a form of mini unit testing, ie write a small block of code, upload and test it.
I remember the old old days, back in my first job, the company I was working for still used EPROMS which had to sit in the UV eraser for 15+ mins to clear them, so we had a big stack of them always in the eraser and cycled them around so we didn’t have to wait after compiling to burn into the EPROM and then stick the prom in the board.
How times have changed
Personally I”m not a big fan of Azure, but i can see that Microsoft will hugely subsidise their server costs, or give it away to gain a toehold.
The impression I get of Azure that MS are targeting high end users, as IMHO, its definitely not cost effective for small small business here to use (unless they really need all the complex features it has)
Re:Download direct to usb mass storage device by the browser
I’m not sure if that will be possible in schools. Her in Aus, most PCs in schools are heavily locked down to prevent students doing anything they are not supposed to.
Government Schools are not allowed to administer their machines, so cant change settings.
<…>
Re:Download direct to usb mass storage device by the browser
I’m not sure if that will be possible in schools. Her in Aus, most PCs in schools are heavily locked down to prevent students doing anything they are not supposed to.
Government Schools are not allowed to administer their machines, so cant change settings.
I guess its probably less invasive than is required to run the Arduino i.e driver install. But then again, I’m not sure how many schools use Arduino really.
