I have notes for translators, if you would add a translation.
This page, as it stood in October 17, is available, translated by a human, into French by Avice.
Not sure what an Arduino is? See my "Why you might enjoy the Arduino" introduction.
This article, as it stood at 14 September 2012, is also available translated to Serbo-Croatian
language by Web Geeks.
Arduino "How To's" and Projects: "Bite sized" pages, some about complete Arduino based projects, others about specific Arduino skills and techniques, i.e. tools for your use while building your own projects
Arduino Programming Course: A series of pages. If you read them in sequence, you will be taken through many, many aspects of programming an Arduino in its version of C. The pages are presented in a carefully considered sequence. The sequence was chosen to let you walk first, then run when ready. That isn't to say that you can't dip in at random, but if you are just beginning with programming, using the sequence may, in the long run, be a better choice.
You don't need to pay for a compiler: the tutorials can be followed with the free software that is available online for use with Arduinos. It runs on Windows XP and can also be used on Linux boxes (hurrah!) and Macs. Thus, everything is valuable to, and supported by a wide community of users.
Feel free to use the tutorials in programming courses, but mention of "SheepdogGuides.com" would be appreciated.
I've done a really short (!) page listing the minimum "stuff" needed to get going with Arduino. (Cost, 11/13, just under $50 plus p &p and taxes.... for everything (don't be fooled by the Pi's "price". Ah. Everything except a small (in capabilities) PC. (A big one will do!) But you probably have one of those already, don't you? You can use your "main one" for what the Arduino needs.)
I became excited about the Arduino at the start of 2008. If you are bothered about its use of a C-like language, don't be. It us just another high level language. If you can program in Java, or Pascal, etc, you can program in the Arduino language. (People from a Pascal background can say "goodbye" to the finger- annoying ":=", but semicolons remain a "little joy" to stay on top of.....)
I've used the Arduino development software extensively under Windows, and have, successfully(!), given it a short "test drive" on a Linux (Ubuntu 7.04) box. It installed on Ubuntu nicely, there are installation instructions on the Arduino site. Kind readers have written me to say they have used the Arduino software with Windows 7 without hassle... what can you tell me about Windows 8?
Also, I have an alternative, "quick start" guide. The alternative guide is written for people who already know something about programming.
You may want to go to the main Arduino site, www.arduino.cc if you haven't been there before.
Another good community is at element14.com.. and they are independent, which sometimes helps. They deserve the plug just for the clever name, don't you think? The site is about much more than Arduinos. Here's a tweaked quote from their "About us" message:
"element14 offers an online community specifically for engineers - from design through maintenance and repair. It is a place to connect with engineers, get information, answers and tools, to find design solutions, to be inspired by innovations"
This section used to be titled "General Arduino Caveat". In it, I used to say that I hadn't used the Arduino much, but was already enthusiastic. I have, from time to time, (blush) been a "God Member" at the Arduino forum.. which may have more to do with endless posting than with wisdom, but, at January 2011, I think I can recommend the Arduino without the "I'm new to it" disclaimer? My pages about Arduino programming were started in February 2008.
From the start, I though the Arduino is a great product. I like the support it has had, for years, and hope to see it go from considerable strength to even greater success.
I say that on the basis of working with computers since 1968, and as someone who taught for twenty years.
(If you think microcontrollers seem pretty cool, but you're not sure that the Arduino is what you need, my introduction to microcontrollers might be helpful.)
The globe to the right helps me see if doing these pages is worth the time it takes. It is interactive; play with it, if you wish. (You need to use your browser's "back" button to get back here after doing so.) The only information the system records is when visitors access the site, and where their ISP connected them to the internet. (In my case, that is 60 miles from where I live, at the moment.)
This comes to me as a free service from Revolvermaps.com. If you know how to insert HTML into your own web pages, it is easily added.
I dislike 'fancy' websites with more concern for a flashy appearance than for good content. For a pretty picture, I can go to an art gallery. Of course, an attractive site WITH content deserves praise... as long as that pretty face doesn't cost download time. In any case....
I am trying to present this material in a format which makes it easy for you to USE it.
Before I turn to fancy things, here's a simple idea which I think will be useful to you. These pages are browser friendly. If you resize the window your browser occupies, these pages will re-wrap themselves nicely. They are much easier to work with if you make the column of text you are trying to read narrower. (See my Power Browsing page for more tips like this.)
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Most of us have HTML capable wordprocessors. My pages don't do "clever" things. You can save them from a browser, and re-load them to the browser from your hard-disc later, off-line. (I describe this in detail below.) OpenOffice (the excellent, FREE, office suite for Windows AND Linux from www.openoffice.org) takes HTML in its stride. With WordPerfect, you can load the .htm file, select all, copy to clipboard, start a new WordPerfect document, then paste in the text, mostly intact and cleansed of HTML.
You should be able to read the tutorials on-line without difficulty. However, you should ALSO find it easy to capture them for off line use, including editing for your own purposes. The following should work. I would suggest that you create a folder for the tutorials so that you can retain my filenames with no risk of clashes. Remember, however, if you pull the tutorials offline, and use them there, you won't get the benefits of revisions to the online version which arise after you do your "harvesting".
On-line, use your browser to view the tutorial you want to capture.
Use the browser's File|Save As... to save the web-page to your disc. At this point you can log off, or visit other pages, perhaps saving them, too.
When you have logged off, just use your browser's File ! Load command to view the material. If you want to edit the files, try using your usual wordprocessor. Failing that, start Notepad (or Wordpad, or anything you like, but then you're on your own <g>). Load the file you saved. Turn word-wrap on. (Notepad: Edit|Word-wrap.)
Snip off the html header and footer. Re-save the document, changing the extension to .txt or .doc Depending on the tutorial, there will be more or less HTML code within the body of the text. With luck, your wordprocessor will cope with this. Give OpenOffice a try if not! Otherwise you can use global search and replaces to remove most of the tags fairly quickly.
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This would seem to be the place for a plug for Textpad. It is much more than Notepad, while not being all that a "wordprocessor" is... but it DOES have features that you will soon come to love, if you do much work with text files.... especially programming or HTML coding. All of my web pages are created with it, and much of the other text work I do is done with it, too. It has a spell check. It has syntax highlighting. I turn to my wordprocessor (OpenOffice Writer, aka ooWriter) only when I want to produce a letter- formatting and font options are not extensively supported in TextPad. However, it does have many, many, very neat touches which make it a joy to use for many things. I particularly like their answer to "autotext", and the fact that the user can configure how it displays different classes of documents. Here is a link to their site. Shareware: You can try it for free, and it is not expensive to register for continued use.
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I've tried to be organized: Names start "aht", for "Arduino How To essays". Next is a digit, for the level. Then I've used letters one after the other, e.g. aht1a, aht1b, aht1c. The letter doesn't mean much... it just shows when I got around to that particular topic! Sadly, there are some files with non-systematic names. Sorry!
Here is how you can contact this page's editor. This page, and the software it references, ©TK Boyd, 1/2010.
Page has been tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. It passes in some important ways, but still needs work to fully meet HTML 5 expectations. (If your browser hides your history, you may have to put the page's URL into the validator by hand. Check what page the validator looked at before becoming alarmed by a "not found" or "wrong doctype".)
AND tested for
