AVR-Chat

--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Mucha" <dave_mucha@y...> wrote:

> does anybody have any experiance
> with PALM's and AVR's and/or 
> bootloaders ?

How about basing the controller on the AVR Butterfly? That comes with 
a bootloader that is compatible with AVR Prog, which is free from 
Atmel.  The Butterfly has a serial port.  You would hook that up to 
the PC to update the firmware and to the PALM to update parameters.  
You get a seven-digit display, which I'm sure would be useful (if 
nothing else, to show the time), a cute little joystick and a light 
sensor all for $20.00. There is a JTAG-ICE port, which is great for 
development and debugging.

A downside is the Butterfly is a bit short on GPIO, but a port 
extender would solve that.

I have a project (somewhat on hold) to produce a "carrier card" for 
the Butterfly that turns it into a more general purpose development 
platform. It has an external power supply, DB9 for the serial port, 
brings the JTAG-ICE and ISP to upward-facing headers at the back and 
GPIO to a prototyping area at the front. I also have in development a 
JTAG-ICE clone that would sell at around $40.  I could post a photo 
of the two working together. If this sounds interesting, I'm looking 
for an early-adopter to flush out any wrinkles.

Graham.