Micah Carrick

I purchased a Powertip PC-1202A 12x2 LCD with backlight from Wright Hobbies a while back since it was only $7.95. I will be using it often for various projects with robotics and microcontrollers. The problem was, I didn't want to take up all my IO pins on my processor just with the LCD interfacing. I found some circuits for 3-wire and 2-wire interfaces. I went with the 3-wire interface (4 if you want the AVR to control the backlight) and wrote my own little set of routines for controlling the LCD.

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I just purchased my AvrUsb500 from tuxgraphics.org. The AvrUsb500 is an open-source (hardware and software) USB programmer for the Atmel AVR microcontrollers. This is just a quick run-down on how to get setup using the AvrUsb500 on a Linux system. In this case, I'm using Fedora Core 4. It is assumed that you have setup your Linux distribution with the GNU tools for AVRs (avr-gcc). If you haven't, you should first read Installing the GNU tools for AVRs.

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This is just a quick, simple little program for an ATMega8 (can easily be adapted to any AVR) that I've setup to test the installation of avr-gcc and the GNU toolchain, avrdude, and my AvrUsb500 USB programmer from tuxgraphics.org.

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I have been using PIC Microcontrollers for my robotics tinkering for a few years. I have also been primarily a Linux user for the last year or two, and have been able to rely on Linux for my work (Web Developer), my school (Computer Science), and all my personal work (robotics, programming, and other nerdy stuff of that nature). I resisted the Atmel AVR Microcontrollers for some time, despite their growing popularity within the hobby robotics community, due to the countless hours I had invested in PICs. However, after learning that the AVRs were designed with C and the GNU tools in mind--a toolset that I use regularly for schoolwork and personal programming projects--I had to give it a further look.

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