AVR programmer kit
Finally gotten some samples of atmel AVR processors, quite powerful
when i read the datasheets, lots of prepherials and onboard ram, EEPROM
and flash memory.
Here you find a small list what you need to get started with these
microcontrollers.
Programmer
First an programmer with software. Well the dutch electronics site www.circuitsonline.net has
an
schematic
an programmer for all the atmel series. Its basically an adapted
programmer from the pony
prog2000 programmer. You can look for the schematic on that page
(look for AVR series).
Software
You can use the pony prog2000
programmer software. It works very well and is quite straightforward to
use, but best of all. Its free!
Application notes
On the atmel
AVR homepage there is heaps of information to find about these
devices. But also the handy development enviroment called AVR studio,
problem it only allows development by using AVR assembler. On the site
AVRfreaks.com there is an C compiler available. Its delivered with an
editor compiler suite and some library's. It works quite well if you
are familiar with the GNU toolset, like make gcc ld and the like. I
have started out with AVR studio, but now have switched to winavr C
compiler suite. Its free and works quite well, setup is a little bit
tricky but when you know what to do. Your first hello world program via
the USART is done in no time. The ported C library with printf and
scanf makes it very easy to make interactive programs. There is an big
disadvantage to them, they are HUGE, they gobble up quite some space,
an simple printf() increased my image from several bytes to 6K or so.
Follow the getting started tutorial on AVRfreaks, its written very
well. I used it as an starting point to get started with the winAVR
package.
The setup works well and opens the
door to develop some projects based on these quite powerful highly
integrated devices. I am thinking about replacing the 8051's i use in
my robot project with them. And use the 8051 for more complex control
applications of purely digital systems.
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Last update at: 07-06-2005