user7852: I'm connect arduino to my PC through serial monitor. Very common situation:
Serial.begin(9600);
delay(100);
Serial.print("Hello, World!");

But I always get an ¤ello, World!. How can I get the first symbol straight? I've tried on both unix & windows, mega & uno. I've also tried println, but with no happiness

user9911: See the following article:
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardNano
See the section at the bottom called:
Automatic (Software) Reset
Basically, one has to delay for 1 second (at least) after initializing the serial port before you can read data.  It seems that the Arduino makes an assumption that after the serial port is initialized, what may happen next is a request to load a program.  As such, it looks for a period of time (I guess up to a second) for a string of magic characters that indicate a program load.  If it doesn't find those, then it starts to behave as you would expect ... but only after it times out looking for a program load.

7852: <p>I'm connect arduino to my PC through serial monitor. Very common situation:</p>

<pre><code>Serial.begin(9600);
delay(100);
Serial.print("Hello, World!");
</code></pre>

<p>But I always get an <code>¤ello, World!</code>. How can I get the first symbol straight? I've tried on both unix &amp; windows, mega &amp; uno. I've also tried <code>println</code>, but with no happiness</p>
 9911: <p>See the following article:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardNano" rel="nofollow">http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardNano</a></p>

<p>See the section at the bottom called:</p>

<p>Automatic (Software) Reset</p>

<p>Basically, one has to delay for 1 second (at least) after initializing the serial port before you can read data.  It seems that the Arduino makes an assumption that after the serial port is initialized, what may happen next is a request to load a program.  As such, it looks for a period of time (I guess up to a second) for a string of magic characters that indicate a program load.  If it doesn't find those, then it starts to behave as you would expect ... but only after it times out looking for a program load.</p>
