Thanks for the answer. I know many are scared off by the closed bootloader of the teensy (though I feel it's a fair thing to do). The lack of on-chip debugging is another shortcoming the Teensys have.

I've been working on an audio project recently, and the the ease of use and feature set that TeensyAudio has is incredible.

Teensy 4 does currently fill a pretty unique niche in terms of processing power though. There isn't much like it outside of professional eval boards.

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Xenograph 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I know many are scared off by the closed bootloader of the teensy (though I feel it's a fair thing to do).

Why is it a fair thing to do?

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alnwlsn 9 hours ago | parent [-]

It supports the developer by preventing blatant ripoffs of the Teensy.

Paul is one guy, and has put in a ton of effort writing high quality libraries for it. Most or all of them are open source. The main MCU is a commodity item. Only the bootloader chip is closed source.

If you want to rip off the Teensy, you can use the same MCU but you'll need to come up with your own bootloading process (Adafruit could do this if they wanted to). It wouldn't be that difficult but is enough of a barrier to stop casual cloning. Seeing as how Amazon and Aliexpress are filled with cheap Arduino clones but not Teensys, it seems to have gone well so far. Nobody wants to be undercut so easily by someone who has no intention of contributing back.

	▲	isopede 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What's so special about the Teensy bootloader? If it's the only closed source component, why not just replace the bootloader with an open source one?

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throwaway81523 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Teensy 4 does currently fill a pretty unique niche in terms of processing power though. There isn't much like it outside of professional eval boards.

If I want that much performance, maybe I should think about a Pocketbeagle 2. And almost every embedded MCU these days is sprouting an on-chip "AI" extension ;).