HLT wiki/Arduino A Ttiny 4585

HLT wiki/Arduino A Ttiny 4585.

This is very clever, using an Arduino UNO to target an ATTiny45 or ATTin85 with a sketch! Watch out for assumptions in Arduino libraries, most notably that the assumption of 16MHz operation. And of course there are clearly limitations in terms of available pins on the smaller device.  For what it’s worth, Wicked Device Day Counter kits come with an ATTiny85V and a programming header if you want something a bit more sophisticated than a breadboard to play with :)!

How I got hooked on AVRs

For my first blog post <gasp>, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit my roots. My first exposure to the world of microcontrollers came in my Junior year at Cornell (Go Big Red!) when I enrolled in a class called, well, Microcontrollers (EE476). It was, hands down, the most valuable/practical educational experience I ever had, not to mention the most fun I had in a class.

One of the coolest things about the class is its website, which the professor, Bruce Land (kind of a legend in his own right), has done a really great job of keeping up over the years. I like to think of it as one of the best kept secrets in embedded computing on the web. It’s chalked full of super useful resources running the gamut from sensors applications to embedded operating systems.

What I really love about it, though, is perusing the Past Final Projects section of the site, where you can view student final projects which have come out of the class dating back to 1999! This is a veritable treasure trove of ideas and lessons learned, and it’s also a great way to kill some time and learn a bunch along the way. For your amusement, I’ll refer you to my (awesome) final project. My lab partner, Paul, gets full credit for that very detailed sketch above. Wow, brings back memories :’-).

Anyway I’ve been hooked ever since!