> Are they more in number and easier to use than the Arduino libraries?
It's not either/or, beyond what's in the native SDK RP2 boards also benefit from the Arduino ecosystem via the excellent and well maintained https://github.com/earlephilhower/arduino-pico
Modern remixes of legacy microelectronics like this are a hobby I'm particularly fond of. I'm sure I'm not alone in having assembled far too many Z80, 6809 and 6502 and of course 8088 projects than is probably healthy over Covid.
On the PC-XT specifically I highly recommend anyone who isn't already familiar dig in to the great Sergey Kiselev's project logs and documentation,[1] as he's often the root inspiration for many more recent remixes (such as the NuXT) [2]. He's also created clean redesigns of many ISA-compatible cards (sound, video, storage).
Some people take the hobby to levels I find mind-boggling, such as Alexandru Groza's efforts to essentially single-handedly recreate 386 hardware. [3]
I've been watching this project like a hawk for months to see whether the final DMA/FDC bugs they identified get ironed out.
The idea of being able to hand-assemble a 386DX SBC, ISA backplane and Alexandru's other ISA cards is incredibly attractive to me - I find hand soldering to be entrancing in the same way some describe knitting.
I don't think I've seen anyone suggest that there is absolutely no impact on transmission. Teenagers were previously a population in which the virus could freely circulate where now there's at least some limited curtailment.
It wasn't my point, but others in this thread have also noted with sources that the level of impact on that younger population (and even small children), including long covid, also appears to be generally underestimated by the general population.
As I understand it, precisely because they may then pass the infection on to those who may then end up with a severe illness (either because they're unvaccinated or because their protection is waning).
It's not either/or, beyond what's in the native SDK RP2 boards also benefit from the Arduino ecosystem via the excellent and well maintained https://github.com/earlephilhower/arduino-pico