AVR Board with BootLoader

AVR boards with boot-loader can be your first AVR board to familiarize with AVR hardware and to learn AVR programming using either assembly language or AVR C language (WinAVR).

The Boards as represented above come either with RS232 interface or USB interface.

The communication with AVRstudio is through AVR-Prog utility. To burn the flash with your code you must either cycle the power off/on or press reset. The system enters into programming mode and waits for communication from AVR-prog utility for a few seconds. Upon time out it Jumps to location 0x0000 (infact flashend+1). If during the wait cycle AVR-prog is activated the system enters into programming mode and the user program can be downloaded. Due to the use of LPM and SPM commands the programming is quite safe and it is not easy to corrupt the boot-loader program.

Out of all the available options I find Board with Bootloader to be the most immune to AVR hang-up due to improper configuration of either clock setting or other bits as the boards come fully configured (with clock etc.) and Bootloader programs can have in-build safety to prevent un-necessary modification to the hardware configuration. More over this configuration is the most cost effective for learners as it does not require separate programmer.