frank26080115 shared his own open source mbed base station design in the project log forum:
Does anybody here use the mbed? I got one recently and it’s really great for trying out ARM. The DRM on it is pretty bad though, and the online compiler isn’t the greatest. However you can till build binaries using GNU offline if you really need to
Via the forum.
That’s a great idea for a breakout board, I’m sure many of those could be sold once the word got out. I also feel the mbed is let down by the online compiler, part of the reason I stopped using mine.
The mbed is still great. I’d like to point out by “DRM” I mean two things:
1st
Your mbed’s serial number is locked to one account, you cannot sign up twice using the same mbed serial number unless you get permission from the staff at mbed (say you are a running a class or lab at school). I’m not sure how one would go about giving away a mbed as a gift if you’ve already used the serial number. I should ask the staff about this.
The online compiler is RealView, very expensive, and probably the reason why there’s a serial number involved at all. You can use a GNU compiler offline if you want. The online compiler is great for testing out stuff other people wrote.
However this means that you can’t try-before-you-buy, and you can’t even register for the wiki or forums.
2nd
The source code of the official mbed library, the API that they provide, is not available. There are alternatives though, the vendor NXP provides APIs that are free to use and distribute so no real problems there.
In the end the hardware is very fun. Don’t let the online compiler bother you, just switch to GNU.