This way your included headers are easier to see and find. We generally don’t follow the directions here for installing AVRlib and place it into the include folder of WinAVR installation found at C:/WinAVR/avr/include/AVRlib. To install WinAVR, get the newest version here and follow the directions on the installer.

It can do pretty much anything else you need it to do. AVRlib is a set of libraries that can run servos, set up A/D conversions, etc. If you would like to use the ET-AVR or some other dev board, you can use this parts list: Part (Click for larger pic).Ī full parts list of above circuit: : Part If you don’t want to buy the ET-AVR, you can build the circuit for this hack yourself. This LCD has nice software library, which makes it even easier to use.Ī more attractive choice would have been to go with a graphical LCD, which are also supported by our library, however, we only had the character LCD on hand.Ī common AT keyboard will be used for character input, again these aren’t hard to find, you probably have an extra one laying around somewhere. The HD44780 chip allows for several bit widths for parallel programming, as well as commands, and even custom characters. These LCDs are really easy to control with a microcontroller(PDF), and even without one(PDF).

The LCD chosen for this project is a very common 4×20 character LCD. I’ll be using the on board power supply and the MAX232 RS-232 level converter. This dev board is cheap and has the essentials built in. I’m using the ET-AVR stamp module with the stamp board for this project. To fix this problem, we’re going to use a MAX233 chip. RS-232 uses 12 volt signals which will fry our 5V microcontroller. Since this device will be communicating through RS-232, we’re going to need a level shifter. It’s a young distro based on Ubuntu that’s gaining a lot of attention lately, though the principles can be used for other Linux distros.įor this How-To we’ll be using an ATMEGA128 running at 16MHz. The Linux system in question here will be Linux Mint. Additionally, you might want to check into some of the command line interface programs that allow web browsing, AIM and IRC chatting and more directly from the terminal, but nothing beats being able to track your pizzas with this device. This super simple serial terminal will use RS-232 to control a headless linux system. From time to time, a portable dumb terminal can be handy for when you have to rescue a headless server that’s acting up or if you are building a minicomputer out of a WRT, or if you just want to learn how to run a keyboard and LCD screen with a microcontroller. This hack shows how to make a dumb terminal out of a keyboard, LCD screen, and an 8-bit microcontroller.

Serial terminal program linux