Minimus AVR USB and Minimus 32 AVR USB

Setup

To program under linux requires 2 things, avr-gcc and dfu-programmer:

aptitude install avr-gcc avr-libc dfu-programmer

NB: dfu-programmer should be at least version 0.5.2 to support the atmega32u2, this needs at least 0.5.4-1 if you are using the Debian package, at the time of writing only in testing/unstable.

USB is basically done in software, so if you want to emulate something USB-ish you will need a library, e.g. LUFA.

Introduction to coding for the AVR

In the diagram above you'll see each pin referred to as something like PD7. This means bit 7 of port D. Each port is controlled by a set of 8-bit global variables, each bit within referencing a different pin.

DDRx

1 - output mode, 0 - input mode

PORTx

If output, 1 - connected to VCC, 0 - connected to ground. If input, enables pull-up resistor

PINx

If input, shows whether pin is currently high or low.

That was very brief. This longer guide may prove useful. What on earth is a pull-up resistor? Look through this.

Here is a small example program that uses both LEDs and the button. Press the button and the red LED turns on, let go and the blue LED comes back on:

#include <avr/io.h>

int main(void) {
  DDRD = 0b01100000; /* LED Ports are in output mode */
  PORTD = 0b10000000; /* Enable pull-up on PD7 */
  while(1) {
    if(PIND & (1<<PD7)) {
        PORTD |= 1<<PD6; /* Red off */
        PORTD &= ~(1<<PD5); /* Blue on */
    } else {
        PORTD |= 1<<PD5; /* Blue off */
        PORTD &= ~(1<<PD6); /* Red on */
    }
  }
  return 0;
}

Compiling & uploading code

Firstly the board needs to be ready to accept new code. To do this, hold down HWB, press and let go of RESET, let go of HWB. Try running lsusb, you should see one of the following:

Bus 002 Device 006: ID 03eb:2ffa Atmel Corp. # Minimus
Bus 001 Device 041: ID 03eb:2ff0 Atmel Corp. # Minimus 32

To write to this, your user needs access to /dev/bus/usb/001/041 (or the relevant path to where your Minimus is attached to the USB bus). The easiest thing to do is add a udev rule like this, to allow any user in "plugdev" access:

# cat /etc/udev/rules.d/minimus.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="03eb", ATTR{idProduct}=="*", GROUP="plugdev"

We are ready to program. I have created a very simple program and uploaded it to github. To use this:

$ git clone git://github.com/lentinj/port_test.git
$ cd port_test
$ make hex # Make a hex file
$ make upload # Upload it to a minimus waiting for new code