1 (edited by cementimental 2017-12-13 12:10:43)

Topic: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

Thinking of getting one some time, mainly to experiment with the text-to-speech which is based on SAM. It has some presumably squarewave-based sound/music functions built in, and I imagine some clever 1-bit stuff could be done with code

the 5x5 LED display has me thinking about sequencers smile

Looks fun!

Re: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

A 32-bit platform with horsepower of few dozens of Spectrums isn't really that interesting - it is too powerful. You can just play PCM audio on it, or tracker modules, or emulate whatever soundchip, all through 1-bit DAC.

As I never ever heard of it before seeing this post, I can imagine it going to be difficult to obtain as well. In general, it could be interesting to someone, but it falls to the same category as the fakebit VSTs and Arduino developments, just much less accessible than that.

website - 1bit music - other music - youtube - bandcamp - patreon - twitter (latest news there)

Re: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

hah yeah true big_smile

It's actually very easy to get here in the UK at least since every branch of Maplin stocks it and every child of 13 years old in the country was supposedly given one at school !?

Re: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

I own one, I got it from import because I'm in France. It's a cool product, a bit like arduino but more for children. There are already good 1-bit engines for Arduino!

Re: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

Hehe, I'm actually sort of working for the micro:bit's German sister project, the Calliope mini. It's quite a curious setup. They're somehow super powerful and super lame at the same time. The need to deal with an operating system (3 layers of OS actually, as there's the Microbit runtime running on top of ARM MBED running on top of Nordic's nRF stuff) poses some rather unique challenges xD
I could rant about it for hours but in short my verdict would be: It's great for educational purposes, but for actual development I'd stick to either Arduino or RasPi, depending on the scale of the project.

Re: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

given the high number of abstractions, is it possible to run the "sketches" or code from micro:bit on the Calliope mini? I think too they are great products for education, and also for quick development of easy things (like on arduino actually).

Re: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

Yes, pretty much anything that runs on the micro:bit should run on the Calliope mini. It's the same base board with some stuff added such as motor control and a microphone.

Re: Anyone done anything with BBC micro:bit yet?

utz wrote:

somehow super powerful and super lame at the same time.

SOLD. big_smile