Hi all,

Recently a friend convinced me to try out the Teensy development board
on a project. For those who don't know, it's a ARM Cortex M4 based
development board that runs at 72MHz. Programming is done directly
from a computer via USB on board bootloader). It's a very capable
platform, and was surprisingly easy to get in to. More info available
here: http://pjrc.com/teensy/index.html

One of the reasons it is so accessible (besides low cost) is that the
gent who created it, Paul, maintains a large list of compatible
library code on his site, and for the last few versions he's made a
plugin for the Arduino environment as well, opening up even more
libraries for exploration.

The project I was working on was fairly simple but I was having
trouble getting the speed out of a PIC. The Teensy had a nice
combination of processor speed and enough on board peripherals that I
needed, so it was a decent fit. The cost of the board (roughly $20)
means that using it for higher quantities might not be the most
economical option. Indeed, Paul even talks about that on his forum and
suggests that for higher volumes he might not be the best choice. What
he does sell is his bootloader on an M0 chip that you can use on your
own board if you desire. That still seems like overkill to me though,
since in a higher volume situation I wouldn't really need a bootloader
on each board, I could use an external program.

So my question is this. Given that I liked developing on the Teensy
itself, are there ways to move from the C code written in the Arduino
app to something that could be used (via a programmer) without the
bootloader chip?

I do plan on asking this on his forum as well, but I'm looking for a
viewpoint of people who aren't tied as tightly to this specific
hardware. I don't want it to seem like I am proposing to cut Paul's
contribution out of my work flow, I'm just curious how one moves
beyond being tied to modules and software designed for flexibility and
easy of use and on to more robust solutions designed for higher
volumes and customization. For me, cost is part of it, but also being
able to access certain pins on the chip that are tricky to get at on
the module are something I'm wondering about as well.

Thank you!

Josh
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