Secret Labs Netduino Go

This is a completely new take on the traditional experimenter's microcontroller board. For the price, you are getting a serious amount of power, plus the ability to code in C# or VB.NET (.NET Micro Framework 4.2).All the code: the drivers, the coprocessor code, the NETMF port are all open source software. The hardware is open source hardware. Kudos to the Secret Labs folks for continuining with this approach on their latest version.On the Netduino GO, all modules communicate with the main board using the digital GO!bus protocol. This is a chip-to-chip protocol (I believe it also can work over SPI or serial if you prefer) of varying speed. I've seen mentioned speeds up to 40MHz. The on-module chips that provide this functionality are pretty cheap ($0.30 each in quantity), but have a number of capabilities. I've ordered a bunch from Digikey to experiment with. Secret labs is also looking to potentially expand the universe of supported (meaning they provide GO!bus code) chips to ones like AVR and more, making it easier for DIY folks to experiment.Also, while you can do a LOT more with this, you could combine the main GO board with a Shield Base module and you'd end up with a super Netduino. If you want traditional pin-based IO, the inexpensive shield base module is a must-have addition.For Gadgeteer fans, the Netduino GO is not a Gadgeteer board, but it does allow you to use X, U, or S Gadgeteer modules in compatibility mode. Unfortunately, this ties up a number of sockets to make it work, so I suspect it will be good for emergency use only, or if you have only a single Gadgeteer module (or at most 2) you need to use at any point in time. The real power comes from using native GO!bus modules.I wrote up a much more comprehensive review of this board on my blog at 10rem.net on 4/7/2012.If you like to code in C# or VB, and want a good microcontroller board to use, you can't go wrong here. Just get it.Disclosure: I work for Microsoft, but we make absolutely nothing off this. The .NET Micro Framework is completely open source, apache licensed. Version 4.2 consisted of 40% community-contributed code, and was developed out in the open. The development tools (Visual Studio Express 2010) are free as well.