Re: Hello, I must be going . . .

I think this is very fascinating. I am just starting a class which uses the MSP430 (Physics 324 - Instrumental/Computer Interfacing) and was wondering why we are learning this microcontroller over the Arduino. 

 I use a Mac, and I have been exposed to the various projects (hardware and software) on the Arduino platform, so I would have liked to use that instead. Just as the Arduino is easy to learn and make modular as a hardware platform, the MSP430 is powerful in being low-power and useful as an educational/demonstration tool for showing how a microcontroller works.
 

 However, I'm also wondering if someone has not already tried to make the MSP430 more like the Arduino in the sense of making it more general purpose, i.e.: masking the hardware complexities and removing the reliance on the Windows-based IDE.

 

 Is there anything in particular about the MSP430 which would make this impossible? I am just barely scraping the surface of the MSP430, but as a Computer Science major, I imagine that it might be as simple ("simple" used very loosely) as extending the TI C++ libraries and headers in order to extend functionality.