Full and comprehensive instructions for installing this software on Windows,
Linux, and Mac computers can be found at the Arduino website (www.arduino.cc ). Once you have successfully installed the Arduino software and, depending on your platform, USB drivers, you should now be able to upload a program to the Arduino board.
Uploading Your First Sketch
The blinking LED is the Arduino equivalent to the “Hello World” program used in other languages as the traditional first program to run when learning a new language. Let’s test out the environment by installing this program on your Arduino board and then modifying it. When you start the Arduino application on your computer, it opens with an empty sketch. Fortunately, the application ships with a wide range of useful examples. So from the File menu, open the Blink example as shown in Figure 2- 2.