Surely you can put that together for cheaper at Mouser, no?

The resistors come in packs of ten, as do the 1N4148 diodes.



They didn't have all of the parts I wanted to put into the kit, namely the serial and usb breakout boards (and Futurlec is cheaper). But I will look for another supplier to see if I can further cut costs (if I could find a place that sells grab bags AND microcontrollers we'd be in business, but as of yet I have not found one )

I must say, that looks like a great rundown of 'useful parts to have around for breadboarding'.

I'll likely grab the list sometime, but first strip out the parts I already have (plenty of .1 uF caps, the 7805s, etc).

Okay, I went through my list of suppliers and was able to create a COMPLETE kit for $43.87 (+s/h). It has everything you need to start from scratch (obviously if you already have the parts that are listed then you can omit them from your order). All parts are from Newark Electronics (Make an account, login, click on the shopping cart, click on Quick Paste, then follow the directions to upload the parts list).

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Oh sweet, that's not a bad list for <$50. Did you order it yet?

Looks nice to me! What is the serial cable for, though? Is it an alternative to the USB cable, or is it necessary? Because my laptop has neither serial nor parallel

Edit: Oh, wait, let me guess. The USB is to power the breadboard, and the serial is to program the microcontrollers? Do I win? (In this case, winning means losing for me, but still...)

USB is for interfacing in general (I'd guess), and serial is for actually programming the thing (I'm assuming the intent here is to use PonyProg+an SI-Prog programmer built on the breadboard).

The power is supplied from 9v batteries, run through a 7805 or such (you could do it from USB, but you'd quickly hit the hard current limit of 500 mA- don't do it).

Okay... so is there some alternative to serial that I could use for programming? Or is there a usb-serial adapter that actually...gasp...implements the serial specifications correctly??? (I know, I know, it's difficult to do, but don't call it serial if it ain't serial!!!)

Unfortunately, I don't think so. You might be able to use a USB->Serial dongle if the SI-Prog only uses RX and TX lines on serial, but I don't think it does.

Your best choice would be to buy a USB programmer, but those are difficult to find for any reasonable price. Although it seems you can get a MPLAB ICD2 (PIC only, but it's USB and a full in-circuit debugger) for $40.

Alternatively, there's a custom solution, where you could interface another micro to USB with something like a FT232RL, then have it translate to actually program another micro (not easy to do, but great for learning...).

This is why I asked if everyone had either a parallel or serial port; The Tari is right; the serial cable is to initially program the 18F4550 with a USB bootloader using the SIProg programmer (the parts for it are included in the kit), then using the 18F4550 to program the other chips. Because of this a USB -> Serial adapter will not work (because you need all the lines and it has to be a full spec serial port (+/-12V), which most USB -> Serial adapters are not).

So magicdanw, here are your options

1. Buy a PICkit 2 (Newark Part No. 51M8937, $34.99) or some other usb-based pic programmer (or buy a kit for one)

2. Wait until you get a programmer for your atmel chips for your CS 210 class (do you know what programmer you'll be getting?), and program your ATtiny2313 as a pic programmer to then program an 18F4550 with the USB bootloader.

3. PM me your address and I'll mail you a pre-programmed 18F4550 for use as a programmer.

It's a great shame that these legacy ports - especially the parallel port with its plentiful supply of I/O pins that operate at a sane voltage range - are being removed from machines. USB parallel adapters seem to be even worse than the serial adapters, only implementing enough to cover emulating a printer.

Sadly, we still haven't received our kits in CS 210, so I don't know which chip or programmer we're getting. I like the idea of programming the Atmel to program the PIC, because it sounds delightfully hackish so maybe I'll do that.

Is the ATtiny2313 a very common chip? Because I don't know if that's what I'm getting for my class. I guess once I get my kit, if it doesn't have an Atmel capable of programming the PIC with USB, I'll take you up on your offer for a pre-programmed PIC.

Also, once I've programmed the 18F4550 with the USB bootloader, will I ever need to interface any of the chips with serial? Or will I be able to program all three via the 18F4550's USB interface?

Yes, the ATtiny and ATmega are very common families of atmel chips.



Nope; once you program the 18F4550 you no longer need the serial interface.

Sweet! I can't wait to get my stuff and begin to learn about the hardware I've been writing software for

True story, it's a real shame. Even the high-end desktops that kept the legacy ports are starting to lose them now.

I was surprised that my Lenovo T61 lacked them, since I always thought of the ThinkPads as being nice geeky machines

When you think about it, only hobbyists (and companies that use archaic equipment) use parallel and serial ports anymore, so it's not profitable to include them on newer computers (after all, by taking out legacy ports they save a few cents on each machine, which is a lot of money for them, but it makes us go out and buy $30 I/O cards )

Actually most motherboard manufacturers are removing them to put more useful things there. It isn't a cost issue on high end and enthusiast machines. Now you can get motherboard with 8 USB ports, all 5 audio ports for the 7.1 system, 2 gigE ports, etc.. all on the back panel. That just isn't possible with a single parallel port hogging half the I/O panel.

My motherboard had an empty spot for a serial port, pcb footprint and all just no connector (I soldered one on there so now I have 1 serial port on my comp ), so I wasn't graced with several USB ports and other goodies

I'm assuming you also didn't buy an enthusiast or mid-range motherboard Cheap motherboards have always been cheap - no surprise there