Skip to Content
Getting Started with Arduino
book

Getting Started with Arduino

by Massimo Banzi
February 2009
Beginner
128 pages
2h 45m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Getting Started with Arduino

Chapter 1. Introduction

Arduino is an open source physical computing platform based on a simple input/output (I/O) board and a development environment that implements the Processing language (www.processing.org). Arduino can be used to develop standalone interactive objects or can be connected to software on your computer (such as Flash, Processing, VVVV, or Max/MSP). The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased preassembled; the open source IDE (Integrated Development Environment) can be downloaded for free from www.arduino.cc

Arduino is different from other platforms on the market because of these features:

  • It is a multiplatform environment; it can run on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.

  • It is based on the Processing programming IDE, an easy-to-use development environment used by artists and designers.

  • You program it via a USB cable, not a serial port. This feature is useful, because many modern computers don't have serial ports.

  • It is open source hardware and software—if you wish, you can download the circuit diagram, buy all the components, and make your own, without paying anything to the makers of Arduino.

  • The hardware is cheap. The USB board costs about €20 (currently, about US$35) and replacing a burnt-out chip on the board is easy and costs no more than €5 or US$4. So you can afford to make mistakes.

  • There is an active community of users, so there are plenty of people who can help you.

  • The Arduino Project was developed in an educational environment and is therefore great for ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Getting Started with Arduino, 3rd Edition

Getting Started with Arduino, 3rd Edition

Massimo Banzi, Michael Shiloh
Mastering Arduino

Mastering Arduino

Jon Hoffman, Ejike (George Steve) Ifeanyichukwu, Pratik Desai
Arduino Cookbook

Arduino Cookbook

Michael Margolis

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596155704Errata Page