Posted 04 April 2012 - 08:29 AM

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Dear Friends,You asked for a Netduino with more speed, more flash, and more RAM.You asked for a Netduino with more GPIOs, more serial ports, more analog inputs, and more PWMs.Some of you aren't yet comfortable picking up a soldering iron, or you don't want to spend your time calculating resistor band colors. You want a plug-and-play Netduino.We've been listening. And together with several members of the Netduino community, we've been crafting radical new hardware.Today, we introduce a Netduino with more speed, flash, and RAM. And a Netduino with support for more GPIOs, serial ports, analog inputs, and PWMs. And today, we introduce a plug-and-play Netduino.Best of all, these are all the same board.Introducing Netduino Go. Just $49.95.Netduino Go has four times the speed (168MHz), six times the code space (384KB), and twice the available RAM (100KB+) of Netduino Plus.And with Netduino Go, we've virtualized all the peripherals. So you simply pick what you need and plug it in. Each module has a small microchip which works together with the mainboard.Want to use a relay? Just plug it in. Need six RGB LEDs? No problem. How about a touchscreen? One cable, plug and play.Alongside Netduino Go, we're introducing a very cool accessory. We call it the Shield Base. You plug it into your Netduino Go and it provides you with the latest Arduino pinout, 6 PWMs, 6 ADCs, and a handful of GPIOs. To use it, you just create InputPorts, AnalogInputs, etc. using the standard NETMF classes.It's like freedom, in the form of electrons.All Netduino Go hardware is production hardware. We're shipping the production Shield Base hardware with early beta firmware so that we can get wide feedback on this new virtualization technology. And to say thank you for beta testing the Shield Base, we've temporarily upgraded its 128KB-flash MCU to a full-blown 512KB-flash 120MHz Cortex-M3 microcontroller. You can connect it to power and a USB-TTL serial cable and use it as a traditional Netduino if you'd like as well--while enjoying its 3 serial ports and other new enhancements.Both the Netduino Go and the Shield Base run production versions of .NET MF 4.2 QFE1 (RTM).We are introducing the first six modules today (button, rgb led, potentiometer, shield base, nwazet relay, and nwazet touchscreen). Next up are Piezo Buzzer, Ethernet, and SD Card modules--coming soon. Several dozen modules will ship this year...and we welcome you to build your own as well. More on that separately.Last but not least... Microsoft Research created a nifty technology for researchers to prototype electronic devices. We appreciate that they open sourced their platform, called .NET Gadgeteer. So we created a compatibility mode for Netduino Go which lets you use most S-U-X Gadgeteer modules with Netduino Go. Bluetooth and XBee modules, Temperature+Humidity sensors, GPS modules and more are all available today. There are some limitations--we'll create a thread to discuss and to provide drivers.You may have some questions about the new hardware. We will try to answer them here as best we can. And we'll be talking more about Netduino Go and doing Q&A at next week's O'Reilly webcast I'm looking forward to seeing your creations using Netduino Go!ChrisSecret Labs LLC