simon wrote:I can see this developing into another one of those techy threads that most of us don't understand
.
BB black = BeagleBone black?
Are this, the riot thingy, RPi, Arduino all more or less the same thing (to a non-techy) but with different specs and power etc.?
BBB does indeed = BeagleBone Black... collectively, all such boards are called "SBC"s (Single Board Computers).
The Arduino is typically based on an 8-bit micro, the Atmel ATmega328 (a member of the AVR family) or similar and uses an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) built on the free/open source GNU C/C++ compiler which can target dozens of different processors. They call their programming language "Wiring", but secretly its just dressed-up C++.
The key difference between the 8-bit stuff and the more serious 16 or 32-bit stuff like the Pi/BBB/RIoT/etc. is that the latter can run *real* operating systems like Linux and tend to come with lots of interfaces on the board, as opposed to plug-on cost-option daughter boards (called "Shields" in the Arduino world).
The 8-bit stuff typically runs stand-alone applications or a very lightweight RTOS (real-time operating system) - they don't have much RAM (maybe a few hundred bytes) and very limited program memory. They also run at pretty low clock speeds, e.g. 16MHz or thereabouts. They are simple, and serve a purpose for very low-end stuff.
The bigger SBCs typically have maybe 256Kb to 1Gb of DRAM and many other interfaces. They tend to be 16 or 32-bit processors and also run at much higher clock rates, e.g. 100MHz or 1GHz.
Apples. Pears.
The bizarre thing is that there is not a huge difference in price - an Arduino is about £18, an Arduino Mega £30, an RP costs maybe £25 (£30 with a pre-loaded O/S on an SD card), a BBB maybe £30 and a RIoT about £45 - each is a step change over the other - they are all "cheap", but with an Arduino you have to buy shields for pretty much any non-GPIO interfacing whereas the bigger boards come with it all as standard.
What is certain is that price/performance, which is already a bit mind-boggling, will only continue to improve...
There was an old engineering truism: Fast, cheap, exciting - choose any two!
With these SBCs, that no longer applies - you can have all three...
HTH