Atmel AVR Micros

Documentation

ATmel datasheets here: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/datasheets.asp?family_id=607

The AVRfreaks site and message board is indispensible: http://www.avrfreaks.net/

An AVR Beginner's Site: http://www.avrbeginners.net/

Novice's Guide to AVR Development: http://www.atmel.com/journal/documents/issue1/novice.pdf

The entire AVR 8 bit instruction set: http://www.atmel.com/atmel/acrobat/doc0856.pdf

Development Kits

STK 500:

Atmel Dragon: $49 with USB interface. http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=3891 How to hotrod your Dragon: http://www.instructables.com/id/EVM00HSXH6EZ7C8ZID/?ALLSTEPS

You will also want this adapter, to convert from the 6 pin ISP socket to the more standard 10 pin: http://microcontrollershop.com/product_info.php?cPath=110_53&products_id=1918

AVRISP MkII for $58, in-circuit programmer with native USB http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=3808 http://www.digikey.com/scripts/us/dksus.dll?KeywordSearch?mpart=ATAVRISP2

The world's smallest AVR ISP programmer! CrispAVR USB STK 500 (v 2.0) compatible and is the size of my pinky, no kiddin' (10mm x 42mm). Programs all ISP programmable AVRs. ~$85 depending upon what the Euro does.

Development environments

AVR Studio is an IDE free from ATMEL: http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.asp?tool_id=2725

WinAVR is an open-source development tool set from here: http://winavr.sourceforge.net/

We've been using this for all the SWARM AVR boards with great success. Get this; all the makefiles depend on it.

Proto Boards

Sparkfun has some good ones: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=2_10

Pololu has some ATTiny SMD prototyping boards, pre-populated: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/category/32

Code and libraries

AVRLib: Great set of C libraries to do just about anything: http://hubbard.engr.scu.edu/avr/avrlib/

Tips and tricks

Here is a link to a good discussion on using the various oscillator types: http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm/an_pk/2154

Guide to setting fuses:

http://electrons.psychogenic.com/modules/arms/art/14/AVRFusesHOWTOGuide.php

http://www.scienceprog.com/programming-avr-fuse-bits-oscillator-settings/

AVR Fuse Calculator

Here is a nifty tool that calculates the hex values for the fuses for you based on what you check in each box

http://palmavr.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/fc.cgi

If programming is really *slow* on your stk-500 (this keeps happening to me for some unknown reason), then the serial programming clock may need to be reset. The period should be around 5 uS. If you use the -v option on avrdude, it will tell you the period. To reset sclk, go into interactive mode with the -t option on avrdude. At the prompt, type "sck 5" to set it to 5 uS, then "quit" to exit. Here's the avrdude manual: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/avrdude/avrdude-doc-5.5.pdf