Add On PCB Boards, naming Conventions.?

Thread Starter

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
I already told him on his other thread that Yes, it can power a small hobby servo but to look at his total load. He also has a motor shield and several other devices attached to his Arduino board. Also pointed out the current limits on the Arduino and the need for external power supply.
WHY do the arduino folks insist on referring to an add-on board as a "shield", when all normal discussions of electronics presume a shield to be screening to stop electrical signals?
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
Because if you try to find an Arduino daughter-board or sub-board to purchase you won't find one listed as such? The Arduino was developed for Artists to use, not Electrical Engineers, so that might be a clue...
 

MrSoftware

Joined Oct 29, 2013
2,188
If you take a step back and look at it, the main board is hiding behind it as if it were a shield.. I suppose!? Don't let logic get in the way of marketing!

In all seriousness, the Arduino line is a fantastic entry tool for new guys to play with, and with enough functionality to be useful for many real jobs, and/or for evaluating the processors that they use for custom designs. They've done a great job of making things extremely easy from the new user perspective, as compared to jumping into a typical dev board, with an extremely large online community which makes getting help easy. If you want to make something with one, odds are someone else has beat you to it, posted online about it and maybe even created a library.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
I wonder just how many have been sold including all the clone models. I probably have 8-10 of em in various models and variations and have also given several away. It's been in production for over 10 years and the genuine Arduino count is supposed to be over 700,000. I don't have any real ones. Raspberry Pi has been out for 4 years and has sold 10 million already and true clones don't exist for its proprietary board although there are some unofficial similar clones starting to become available. That many users can't be swept under the rug for being Clueless Newbies. Then there are all of the other Processor Development Boards. Not something insignificant to be looked down on and pooh-poohed.
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
28,619
Never used Arduino, but I always assumed 'Shield' stood for 'Interface'?
Also wish posters would mention they mean RC servo's.
They seem to naturally assume that we should know they refer to the RC variety.
A servo can take many, many forms, of which there are many that are much more varied..
Max.
 
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SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
I still have it on the To-Do list to go solo with ATtinys. I am not so enamored with IOT (internet of things) although there is a lot of development in that area using uprocessor boards.
 

MrSoftware

Joined Oct 29, 2013
2,188
The arduino's are handy for lots of things. Recently I made a custom daisy chain-able input serializer board for work. It serializes 32 digital inputs, supports checksums and a number of other features configurable via register values, and communication is over SPI. I've got a number of various dev boards around, but the easiest way to bench test it was to grab an arduino and write a few lines of code that leverage the existing SPI and serial libraries (to give myself a console). The same could have been accomplished with just about any other dev board you can think of, but with the Arduino it was just so simple. And at the end of the day it's just a chip on a board, so you can get as low level as you want with it, make your own boot loader and code in assembly if it makes you happy.
 

Thread Starter

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
Hello,

With the Arduino, the add-on boards are called shields:
https://randomnerdtutorials.com/25-arduino-shields/
With the Beaglebone, the add-on boards are called capes:
https://beagleboard.org/capes
With the Rapberry pi, the add-on boards are called hats:
https://www.digikey.com/en/maker/blogs/2018/the-top-10-hats-and-phats-for-raspberry-pi
https://opensource.com/life/16/7/top-10-Raspberry-Pi-boards

Bertus
It is a bit of a puzzle as to why anyone would select such goofy names for parts of a system that already have an established nomenclature.
 

Thread Starter

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
Hello,

With the Arduino, the add-on boards are called shields:
https://randomnerdtutorials.com/25-arduino-shields/
With the Beaglebone, the add-on boards are called capes:
https://beagleboard.org/capes
With the Rapberry pi, the add-on boards are called hats:
https://www.digikey.com/en/maker/blogs/2018/the-top-10-hats-and-phats-for-raspberry-pi
https://opensource.com/life/16/7/top-10-Raspberry-Pi-boards

Bertus
It is a bit of a puzzle as to why anyone would select such goofy names for parts of a system that already have an established nomenclature.
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
It is a bit of a puzzle as to why anyone would select such goofy names for parts of a system that already have an established nomenclature.
The name Arduino comes from a bar in Ivrea, Italy, where some of the founders of the project used to meet. The bar was named after Arduin of Ivrea, who was the margrave of the March of Ivrea and King of Italy from 1002 to 1014.
"Arduino" itself doesn't sound like anything pre-existing, but it is basically just an evaluation board.

Which do you think will market better:
1) A new brand with a lot of "me too's" or
2) A new brand with a lot of iconic and seemingly "new" accessories with new names?

I didn't go to business school, but I learned a long time ago that when marketing a commodity ( or something perceived as a commodity), "me too, but we are better" doesn't sell well. You have to be distinctly "different" in a positive way.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
It is a bit of a puzzle as to why anyone would select such goofy names for parts of a system that already have an established nomenclature.
For the same reason they called PCBs Motherboards and Daughterboards, they didn't know any better. Computerization technology and strict Electronics have overlapped with people on both ends of the spectrum not knowledgeable of the other end. And Nerds like goofy names and I've known a few Engineers that like them also.
 

Thread Starter

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
I figured a defensive military term to describe an accessory, like "shield" was only appropriate given the history of Arduin (Arduino).
In electronic we routinely use shields and we use large amounts of shielded cable. And mother boards can often hold daughter boards.
Thus I find that using goofy terms for well defined things is a lot like ghetto language.
 

Thread Starter

MisterBill2

Joined Jan 23, 2018
18,176
And a SKETCH is not always a drawing, is it?
Everybody else in the world uses "sketch" as either the term for a rough drawing or a drawing without accurate details. Thus the use of the term to denote a program listing comes across as an effort at obfuscation. Using a wrong word so as to confuse others. And when the word "sketchy" is used it is intended to mean something lacking in details.
It all comes across as similar to Timothy Leary after his first hundred LSD uses. Not speaking in words intending the same meaning as we normally use them.
 
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