AVR-Chat

Dears

I have been lurking on this forum for a while and I thought I'd let  
you know about this opensource
AVR platform I've worked on.

I teach in a design school, specifically interaction design, and my  
job is to teach designers how to
exploit electronics and microcontrollers to make working prototypes  
of the objects they design.
Most of the platforms are ment to be used by engineers and  
specifically open source tools require to
be real geeks.

this is why we created  Arduino http://arduino.berlios.de.

It's an open source IDE written in Java running on mac os x/ windows  
and linux (coming soon) where the
users programs with a language that looks like java. (it's actually C  
code without the difficult bits
that get compiled by avr-gcc and dowloaded via bootloader)

We also provide the design for an ATMega8 RS232 and USB board with  
bluetooth coming soon.

You can download the source, the apps and the design from the website  
or you can buy pre made usb boards
for 20EUR a piece or 180EUR 10 pieces from our manufacturer.

I believe it could be useful also for electronics beginners in  
general to get started with AVR and microcontrollers
without the pain of learning C/ makefiles etc etc

i would love to read what you think about the concept

massimo

I really love the idea of small "rapid development" boards that allow 
the beginner to have excellent functionality with minimal effort.  
While we "geeks" like to know, and touch the hardware (i.e. ASM 
programmers), I think that the most innovative use of these devices 
will come from the ability to use them at a higher, more symbolic, 
level.

I applaud your efforts.

I have been considering making a breadboard-able board for the 
ATmega128 which essentially has all the JTAG/ISP, and support 
hardware including FRAM and battery-backed precision clock on one 
large "stamp".  You supply the *regulated* power and get all the 
ports along the edge of the 56 pin "DIP".  PortG (5 pins) is brought 
out on a separate header.

The problem is that the minimum width (in a 2 layer design) is only 
0.1" less that the usual width of a breadboard.  So, you can not 
easily breadboard the "DIP".  If you have 2 standard width 
breadboards with a power bus between them, then you can span the 
boards with the DIP and then have MANY available pins to prototype 
your stuff.

I suppose that I could go narrower if I were to use a 4 layer design, 
but I could not afford protoyype boards for testing!

-Tony



--- In AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com, Massimo Banzi <massimo.banzi@p...> 
wrote:
> Dears
> 
> I have been lurking on this forum for a while and I thought I'd 
let  
> you know about this opensource
> AVR platform I've worked on.
> 
> I teach in a design school, specifically interaction design, and 
my  
> job is to teach designers how to
> exploit electronics and microcontrollers to make working 
prototypes  
> of the objects they design.
> Most of the platforms are ment to be used by engineers and  
> specifically open source tools require to
> be real geeks.
> 
> this is why we created  Arduino http://arduino.berlios.de.
> 
> It's an open source IDE written in Java running on mac os x/ 
windows  
> and linux (coming soon) where the
> users programs with a language that looks like java. (it's actually 
C  
> code without the difficult bits
> that get compiled by avr-gcc and dowloaded via bootloader)
> 
> We also provide the design for an ATMega8 RS232 and USB board with  
> bluetooth coming soon.
> 
> You can download the source, the apps and the design from the 
website  

> or you can buy pre made usb boards
> for 20EUR a piece or 180EUR 10 pieces from our manufacturer.
> 
> I believe it could be useful also for electronics beginners in  
> general to get started with AVR and microcontrollers
> without the pain of learning C/ makefiles etc etc
> 
> i would love to read what you think about the concept
> 
> massimo