Hey, I was wondering if someone had connected a USB adapter to the NerdKits? This seems like a cool idea to store/retrieve (?) data with the AVR chip.

I found a PIC tutorial, and since I'm newbie in electronics, I was wondering if someone could do the same tutorial (port from PIC to AVR) ?

here is a nice tutorial I found:

PIC USB TUTORIAL

That particular PIC has built in USB circuitry similar to some Atmel chips that do Like the 90USBXXX Series. However, USB can be done with an AVR through software. It's just not as easy. Here's a link to a project that has been on-going called V-USB. It is a software USB backbone for projects on AVR's. Keep in mind however the crystal will have to be replaced with a 12MHz one which means the NK boot loader will most likely no longer work without a re-compile and install.

That website also has links to several projects that have been done using V-USB. Perhaps one of the best known devices that use this library is the USBASP programmer.

Rick

that vsub project is not fun :( heheheh dunno, it looks too abstract for me, and not really informative to learn from.

I will try to find some other ways to incorporate USB (if possible)

From what I understand, USB isn't easy by any method on your own. Using pre-made libraries, makes it somewhat simpler but still can be a pain depending on what you want to do. If you want to do usb easy, I'd recommend getting a USB based device. I have a Teensy ++ device and basic keyboard and mouse operations are pretty easy. If you want to do it with non-usb avr's, it will be much more complicated.

Rick

I love the idea of native USB. You can make your devices communicate over longer distances (likely 15m or roughly 45ft. at this speed) and USB hubs and hardware are cheap. I believe the max number of devices on the usb bus is 127, so one computer can run a whole bunch of MCUs!