Publicity
FIGnition has been linked via a number of websites - forums and blogs - too many for me to mention, but here's some of the more notable articles and links, followed by Quotable recommendations by existing users:
BBC: How Hard Is It To Build Your Own Retro Computer?
FIGnition was actually completed after the BBC rang me up to request a couple for a CLICK article they wanted to produce, this is their coverage of the first FIGnition boards with pre-release software (just before version 0.5.0):
It's a brilliant article and really gives an insight into many of the ideas behind the machine! Many thanks to Makerfaire UK for putting the BBC in contact with me and for the encouraging and supportive attitude of the BBC journalists.
Times Educational Supplement
One of my customers, a GCSE student built a FIGnition as part of his Design and Technology GCSE and it was reported in The Times Educational Supplement:
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6292669
Strathclyde University Bulk Order
Strathclyde University's Electical and Electronics Department made an experimental order of a 60 kits in 2011 and ordered another 160 kits in October 2012. As Dr Graeme West explained "One of the bits of feedback we got last year is that all the students would have liked the opportunity to build one", so they did! As the largest single order I've had to this date (Jan 2013), it's worth mentioning that the kits were delivered in good order and ahead of time.
Design Spark!
RS Component's Electronic Design Community Blogger William Marshall bought a FIGnition in May 2012 and blogged about it!
http://www.designspark.com/blog/fun-forth-and-fignition
Hackaday
The amateur geek website Hackaday featured FIGnition on April 29.
http://hackaday.com/2011/04/29/bbc-covers-an-old-school-hacker/
Hackaday also featured FIGnition on November 18:
http://hackaday.com/2011/11/18/fignition-flint-is-a-stripboard-build-of-the-simple-computer/
Old-Computers.com
Old Computers now features FIGnition on its news section (it's actually a link back to the BBC article):
http://www.old-computers.com/news/default.asp
Objective Development
FIGnition uses Objective Development's amazing software-based V-USB usb device firmware. They've recently featured it on their website!
http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/prjdetail.php?pid=118
RetroVideoGamer
One of our erstwhile members, Carl Atrill is a moderator and FIGnition fan - it's a great place to catch up with lots of retro goings on!
http://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk
Brainwagon
Brainwagon blogged about FIGnition:
http://brainwagon.org/2011/05/01/a-small-standalone-homebrew-computer-fignition-by-libby8dev/
Interestingly brainwagon really gets the importance of FIGnition being self-hosted. There are lots of computer-like microcontroller-based projects out there, but almost nothing is self-hosted. Instead they rely on external development environments orders of magnitude larger than the machines themselves to do the cross-platform development. This is true, for example, for the (albeit) excellent Uzebox retro game console.
The Register
The Register has written an article about FIGnition going head-to-head with Rasberry PI! It's a really humourous article and the comments are just as good!
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/05/10/fignition_forth_pc/
Replay Expo
FIGnition was featured at Replay Expo in November 2011!
It was also featured a few times in 2 clips from ukretro's replay expo video:
http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/taxonomy/term/2840
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E6k7rSsAx1g#t=0m30s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E6k7rSsAx1g#t=22m03s
ThinQ
The Journalist Gareth Halfacree bought a FIGnition a little while ago, and has written an article about FIGnition for ThinQ:
Full Circle
A FIGnition interview by Les Pounder appeared in the January 1 Full Circle Podcast. :-)
EEWeb
Libby8dev was the website of the day for January 3rd in EEWeb!
Retro Computing Roundtable
In May 2012, FIGnition was featured on the Retrocomputing Roundtable episode #27 by David Greelish who is a computer historian and president of the Atlanta Computer History Museum:
http://rcrpodcast.com/episodes/2012/5/12/rcr-episode-27.html
It's worth listening to the entire show: it's really interesting to get an entire chat show about retro news, opinion and products from people who have a person interest and valuable experience. Check out their take on the Zed-X Spectrum on its 30th birthday and the difficulty in getting hold of PAL video equipment (which mirrors the difficulty I had in getting FIGnition's NTSC conversion working). From their website you can subscribe to the podcast itself via iTunes :-) but the .mp3 can also be downloaded directly!
Enjoy!
Young Rewired State 2012
At YRS 2012 I completed a FIGnition live on stage - I was unable to test it due not having a working Composite video feed, but the following morning I videoed myself switching it on for the first time:
Recommendations
I can't include all the great comments from customers, but here's a selection:
“FIGnition is a fantastic bit of educational kit! Something I can build and use with my children and great for the Retro Computer Museum for learning Electronics and of course programming!” Andy Spencer, Retro Computer Museum Founder.
“ .. I'm also increasing aware of how problematic my childrens' relationship is with technology - they are just consumers of it, and don't really see how they can be anything but customers of technology producers, and I want that to change. I think I first read about FIGnition on the BBC website a few months ago, but it's one of a number of things that I've been thinking about (RaspberryPI, Arduino, etc), especially since I went to PyCon UK last month and met people like Garry Bulmer. FIGnition is the one that hits most of the right buttons for me... ” Daniele Procida, creator of the Lego PowerBook.
“ Thanks so much for this kit, it's brilliant.. and had it fully assembled and working in about half an hour. This kit far surpasses competing kits such as Velleman kits and the instructions were spot on, really easy to follow... ” Thomas Mortensson, Computer Architecture student at Bristol University.
“ I should have mailed you long ago but I just wanted to tell you I've got the package and it works great. I'm having a lot of fun with it. ” Customer from Australia.
“ I received the Fignition, built it, and had a play - it's great stuff...” Gareth Halfacree technology journalist at thinq.co.uk .
"Students VERY interested, some of them are getting quite giddy about the thought of building a computer from scratch. " Martin Callaghan Head of Computing at John Leggott College in Scunthorpe.