Carlos, Which original design do you mean? The actual board distributed to a million kids or the proto type microbit - proto:bit - that I did as the original work that enabled the partnership etc? (ie the stuff I talked about at Pycon UK last year - device, software stack, original DAL, website, original python/c++ compiler etc - ie that we used to run the schools trial with a 1000 devices across a dozen or so schools in the UK, and informed the original specs/reference docs) Regarding the former, I can't speak to that, but regarding the latter, I've had commitment from people to approve release of it, and so on and so forth, but it's now been over 12 months since I expected the go ahead for that. I still expect that to be released (and I know its in good hands), but I don't know when. (After all when you do work for an employer you don't own the code or rights to release... ) It was always expected from all the partners (inc the BBC) that all contributions would be open source, so I'd hope/expect the same for the production hardware. (Though the reference implementation Nick's posted about here would be a much better starting point IMO, for someone looking to develop something new. ) Regarding the python to c++ compiler part of it, that should be a bit moot by the time the proto:bit stack is released because I've been working (slowly) on a better one. (It allows you to compile python code for devices smaller than the ones Micropython will run on). (It's on pyxie -[a verbal play on pycc - pyc-c ] pypi/github/my website) I know that's a non-answer largely, at best slightly useful, but hopefully useful, Regarding a breakout board - proto pic have been tweeting about lots of interesting breakout boards they've been building recently.. Regards, Michael. On 19 October 2016 at 16:34, Carlos Pereira Atencio <carlosperate@gmail.com> wrote:

As far as I understood there was still talks with the BBC to release the original design as well, is that still ongoing?

Also, it would be quite awesome if there was also a OSH breakout board for the edge connector, it could serve as a base for projects to interface with microbit (like the Arduino shields, or raspberry pi hats). Who would be the best person to ask about that, Jonny?

On 19 October 2016 at 15:26, Nicholas H.Tollervey <ntoll@ntoll.org> wrote:

...

Here: http://tech.microbit.org/

Please upvote this on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=12744016

Yay... you can't imagine how happy I am this is all finally out there... everything is open and anyone can go make a micro:bit.

N.

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Hi Michael, I mean the tech-will-save-us layout, not the original one with the Atmel chips, sorry for the confusion. About the breakout board, there are a few companies doing interesting ones. The now classic board from kitronik, the upcoming stuff from protopic, and rkonlinestore has even made an Arduino shield adapter for the microbit. But what I would love to see is something like this: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoProtoShield A breakout board that is fully open (ideally in kicad as well, like the reference design has done), so that anybody could use that as a base to make your own board. I've had a couple of ideas I wanted to work on, but between having limited free time and PCB design not being a strong skill of mine, I have been putting if off. However if I was able to just download something like the protoshield, a well designed base that is easy to modify, then that would really save me a lot of time and work. From my point of view this type of thing really enables newbies to get up and running quickly, removing some of the initial barriers to have some cool PCB made for their projects. Regards, Carlos On 19 October 2016 at 19:13, Michael <sparks.m@gmail.com> wrote:

Carlos,

Which original design do you mean? The actual board distributed to a million kids or the proto type microbit - proto:bit - that I did as the original work that enabled the partnership etc? (ie the stuff I talked about at Pycon UK last year - device, software stack, original DAL, website, original python/c++ compiler etc - ie that we used to run the schools trial with a 1000 devices across a dozen or so schools in the UK, and informed the original specs/reference docs)

Regarding the former, I can't speak to that, but regarding the latter, I've had commitment from people to approve release of it, and so on and so forth, but it's now been over 12 months since I expected the go ahead for that. I still expect that to be released (and I know its in good hands), but I don't know when. (After all when you do work for an employer you don't own the code or rights to release... )

It was always expected from all the partners (inc the BBC) that all contributions would be open source, so I'd hope/expect the same for the production hardware. (Though the reference implementation Nick's posted about here would be a much better starting point IMO, for someone looking to develop something new. )

Regarding the python to c++ compiler part of it, that should be a bit moot by the time the proto:bit stack is released because I've been working (slowly) on a better one. (It allows you to compile python code for devices smaller than the ones Micropython will run on). (It's on pyxie -[a verbal play on pycc - pyc-c ] pypi/github/my website)

I know that's a non-answer largely, at best slightly useful, but hopefully useful,

Regarding a breakout board - proto pic have been tweeting about lots of interesting breakout boards they've been building recently..

Regards,

Michael.

On 19 October 2016 at 16:34, Carlos Pereira Atencio < carlosperate@gmail.com> wrote:

...

As far as I understood there was still talks with the BBC to release the original design as well, is that still ongoing?

Also, it would be quite awesome if there was also a OSH breakout board for the edge connector, it could serve as a base for projects to interface with microbit (like the Arduino shields, or raspberry pi hats). Who would be the best person to ask about that, Jonny?

On 19 October 2016 at 15:26, Nicholas H.Tollervey <ntoll@ntoll.org> wrote:

...

Here: http://tech.microbit.org/

Please upvote this on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=12744016

Yay... you can't imagine how happy I am this is all finally out there... everything is open and anyone can go make a micro:bit.

N.

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There is a git hub repo with gerber of the main board, and it claims (I only say claim because I haven't downloaded them to check personally; unlike the gerbers) to have Altium, Eagle and Kicad files with the schematics etc on them. ( https://github.com/microbit-foundation/microbit-reference-design ) What I can't see is the any firmware source code, but I may not be looking in the right places. On Thu, 2016-10-20 at 08:54 +0100, Nicholas H.Tollervey wrote:

Carlos,

As I understand it (from Jonny), the BBC intends to release these designs but, y'know, gotta have some bureaucracy... ;-)

Jonny is definitely the person to ping about this.

N.

On 19/10/16 16:34, Carlos Pereira Atencio wrote:

...

As far as I understood there was still talks with the BBC to release the original design as well, is that still ongoing?

Also, it would be quite awesome if there was also a OSH breakout board for the edge connector, it could serve as a base for projects to interface with microbit (like the Arduino shields, or raspberry pi hats). Who would be the best person to ask about that, Jonny?

On 19 October 2016 at 15:26, Nicholas H.Tollervey <ntoll@ntoll.org <mailto:ntoll@ntoll.org>> wrote:

Here: http://tech.microbit.org/

Please upvote this on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=12744016 <https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=12744016>

Yay... you can't imagine how happy I am this is all finally out there... everything is open and anyone can go make a micro:bit.

N.

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