The DuinoMite
This page discusses the DuinoMite series of Maximite clones from Olimex (http://olimex.com).
In the Maximite world (which admittedly is a small world) there has been a lot of controversy over the DuinoMite which was the source of a huge campaign promoting it as the replacement for the Maximite.
This page is my personal view of the facts and provide some guidance to readers who may be contemplating using the device.
If you got here from another website it might be better for you to have a look at the main Maximite page first, then return here, as that will give you some background on the device that the DuinoMite was trying to clone.
A Little History
When I developed the Maximite I did it as a fun project. Silicon Chip paid a small amount for the magazine articles but basically I did it for the fun of creating something that would be used by a lot of people and in turn would give them a happy experience. I believe that I was successful in achieving these aims - I had a lot of fun and so have thousands of people who have since built the Maximite.
One thing that I did not foresee was that the Maximite had the potential to be a profitable product like the Arduino,
which has dozens of companies making clones and, in many cases, paying royalties to the developer. I did not want to make money from the Maximite (that is the opposite of fun) but many people saw the potential and contacted me asking if they could build a clone. In all cases my response was that the design and software are free for them to use and I did not want any royalties.
This is the background to the DuinoMite series from Olimex. They saw the possibilities and formed a consortium to make a clone of the Maximite which they hoped would become as big and as profitable as the Arduino.
Unfortunately, while the idea was good, the execution was not so good.
Design
Olimex figured that they were better hardware designers than me (which is true). So they demonstrated this by "improving" the design and adding features which had the unfortunate side effect of crippling other features of the original Maximite design. Olimex were were not concerned as they were convinced that the firmware could fix this.
They then wanted me to create a special version of the firmware to run on their hardware. My problem was that they expected me to do it for free and it would have taken me a long time to write around their frustrating hardware issues. That did not seem like fun to me so, as you would expect, I declined.
When it was obvious that I was not going to "play ball" I was quietly excluded and from then on I have had little to do with the DuinoMite. Eventually someone else was found to modify MMBasic but progress has been slow.
Publicity Campaign
While waiting for the firmware a relentless publicity campaign was conducted to promote the DuinoMite. The problem was that the product was excessively oversold on the basis that it was better than the Maximite and when the issues related to the hardware finally did surface, the sales campaign collapsed.
Then switched to a negative campaign based on denigrating me and the Maximite. This was even more weird as the DuinoMite is in reality a Maximite and is running my software. Unfortunatly you can still see fragments of this battle on the internet (in forum postings, blogs, etc).
I have since managed to defuse the situation somewhat by restricting their access to the latest versions of MMBasic (see Problems in Open Source) but the sad part is that the Maximite was supposed to be about fun and this whole saga was definitely not fun.
DuinoMite MMBasic Ver 3.2A (UPDATED)
The good news is that the latest version of MMBasic is now available for the DuinoMite (at the bottom of this page). It does not fix the hardware issues but it is fully compatible with the same version running on the Maximite and includes all the advanced features of version 3.X such as optional line numbers, the full screen editor and defined subroutines/functions.
For someone new to the world of the Maximite this is how I would summarise the DuinoMite:
- It is a high quality product and very cheap. When used as a straight Maximite (with limited I/O pins) it works very well. This includes all the standard Maximite features like VGA, USB, SD card support and so on.
- There are issues related to accessing more than ten I/O pins and some of the unique DuinoMite hardware features. You need to be technically adept and be prepared to experiment if you wish to use these extra features.
DuinoMite MMBasic 3.X does not attempt to resolve these hardware issues. It supports all the hardware features of the DuinoMite that can work without confusing tradeoffs or by disabling important features - details are in the documentation included with the download. Other than this, the DuinoMite running MMBasic 3.X will work just the same as a standard Maximite and it makes an excellent, ready to run alternative to the Maximite kit.
Source Code to MMBasic
The source code for DuinoMite MMBasic is available from the main MMBasic website at http://mmbasic.com
MMBasic Support
The main Maximite web page lists the support options for MMBasic including the DuinoMite version. For DuinoMite hardware support goto http://olimex.com.
All downloads are for the current version (ver 3.2A). Older versions can be found in the archive.
| UPDATED DuinoMite MMBasic - Includes Instructions and the MMBasic Language Manual | DOWNLOAD |