OT: Has anybody used the "ABC" AVR Basic Controller?

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Tue Oct 9 14:00:06 2001

I've got plenty of information about the AVR, but this particular board, and
original ABC "Maxi" board from Investment Technologies, an Autralian company.
The problem is that their documentation, which they freely distribute, is in a
poor state, either due to poor preparation and premature release, or poor
maintenance, particularly in light of the fact they've released a revised
version of the board with the PLCC rather tha DIP version of the AVR. The
layout drawing has components missing, though it's clearly the right board
verison, and the board has erroneous signal routing to the dedicated LCD module
connector, and components reflected in the schematic that aren't on the board,
etc. This is either an early version of the documentation that was overwritten
on the web site when they put the new board's doc's out there, or it's an
all-too-common piece of crappy work.

I'm hoping to come across someone who can either (1) provide me with the "real"
documentation, sans omissions, or (2) verify what a piece of %$#_at_! this really
is. What appeals to me is that it has 4 optoisolated inputs and 4 mosfet
outputs not to mention the LCD support, though it's screwed up. If this stuff I
have is the released version of the doc's for this product, and I got the one I
have at Radio Shack.com's rummage sale last summer, not from the normal retail
channels, then I'm adequately warned off the notion of buying a couple of dozen
of these for use in my work, handy or not. OTOH, if there is a good doc
package, then I'd risk buying one of the current devices, since it has features
I like, for use in rapid prototyping. The AVR is a fairly capble architecture,
though still 8-bit in nature. I'd happily use it for the quickies, since this
board is only about the size of a playing card.

In short, the AVR doc's are not what I'm after. I'm after the specific released
documentation for this particular model of this product.

Thanks for the offer, Joe.

regards,

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe" <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 8:17 AM
Subject: Re: OT: Has anybody used the "ABC" AVR Basic Controller?


> Dick,
>
> I haven't worked with the AVR stuff but I have a book that goes into
> good detail on them. It's the "Handbook of Microcontrollers" by Myke
> Predko. I'll loan it to you if you need it. There are some resources on
> the net that you might try, to join the List server send a message to
> Atmel-request_at_pic.co.za with "JOIN" in the body. there are acouple of
> related web sites at www.ipc.o.ca/people/kalle/atmel.html and
> www.sistudio.com and www.dontronics.com.
>
> Joe
>
>
> At 07:25 AM 10/9/01 -0600, you wrote:
> >I recently acquired an AVR Basic Microcontroller "Maxi Board" which is an
> >applicaton of the AVR 90S8535 MCU with a number of potentially useful
> features.
> >However, it's got the worst set of documents that I've ever seen published
> for
> >what should be a substantial product of its type. It has errors, it lacks
> vital
> >description elements, e.g. which CPU pin drives which connector pin, etc.
> >
> >They lon longer, however, make the board I have, and, as a result, I'm hoping
> >that the "real" doc's have simply been replaced by the ones for their current
> >model. I'm certainly not going to buy one of their current products if this
> >one's doc is representative of what they produce.
> >
> >Any info directrly acquired from dealing with the board mfg's (Investment
> >Technologies, in AU) that you can share would be appreciated.
> >
> >thanks,
> >
> >Dick
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 09 2001 - 14:00:06 BST