USB hacking, again!

Published on: 2008-2-23

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USB hacking, again!

2008-02-23T16:56:52

I thought I will not touch USB stuff again - after some "exciting" work in the past with a Microchip PIC! Believe me, you have to be in a very peculiar state of mind to read the USB spec! But host side USB is simple - especially if you don't get into the kernel and simply stick with libusb - and that's what I am doing now ... What is the best option for USB connectivity for your small microcontroller applications? A USB enabled micro? Or a USB-RS232 converter (say from FTDI)? Check out AVR309 for a simple solution, if all you want is very low-speed USB connectivity. Burn some code onto an Attiny2313 or Atmega8 and it is ready to send/receive USB data! No need to go for hard-to-solder surface mount parts or expensive micro's with hardware USB support. Here is what I wanted to do - burn machine code into an Atmega16 using just the USB port! It should also be possible to use the same USB port for serial communication with the mega16. The solution - burn an AVR109 based bootloader and use `avrdude' on the PC! But `avrdude' doesn't support the AVR309 based USB-serial converter. Fortunately, adding support for that was very simple - more details later! What is all this for? For use in an exciting "free hardware" project, which is fast nearing completion! Watch this space for more announcements ....


Vivek

Sat Feb 23 19:59:42 2008

"Believe me, you have to be in a very peculiar state of mind to read the USB spec!" So True...


Pramode C.E

Sun Feb 24 11:59:23 2008

I am sure Anish too has the same opinion ....


Anish Bhaskaran

Mon Feb 25 05:42:33 2008

sure I do... :)