I've used Arduinos... with much pleasure.. for years. In November 2017, I was forced past my fears into the world of programming ATtinys... and found that my fears were misplaced, and that ATtinys (more on what THEY are in a moment!) are great, easy to use, inexpensive, and fun! (I've written extensively about using Arduinos, if you aren't familiar with them. (Use an Arduino before you try to use ATtinys.)
If you've been using Arduinos, you have nothing to fear from ATtinys! And you won't have to spend money. In fact, you will save yourself money, because you can do with an inexpensive (about $3) ATtiny things which you might otherwise do with an "expensive" ($12?) Arduino! (The photo comes from Andy Brown's excellent ATtiny pages)
It may be that you are listening to the "one-eyed king" here... but I do try not to tell you more than I know. Sometimes a beginner can help another beginner better than "the experts" because a fellow beginner doesn't assume that the newer beginner knows what "everyone" knows.
So far, I can offer...
Getting Started with ATtinys. What IS an ATtiny? How do you program them? How do you use them? (Not hard, for anyone who's done a bit with Arduinos. You'd spend almost nothing to give them a try.)
ATtiny "fuses": What are they? Altering their settings. The ATtiny has "fuses". YOU DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THEM while getting started. But when you are ready, here's what they are, what they do, and how you can change their settings.
A general purpose PCB for eight pin ATtinys. I created a small PCB ("PCB271") which I hope you will find generally useful, suitable for many eight pin ATtiny projects. It costs about $3 plus p&p.
A general purpose PCB for eight pin ATtinys. I created a small PCB ("PCB271") which I hope you will find generally useful, suitable for many eight pin ATtiny projects. It costs about $3 plus p&p.
Also check out my page about the Adafruit Trinket. The original was ATtiny85 based, but easier to program than a "naked" ATtiny. (Of course you pay various prices, not just from your wallet. (Wallet cost, 1/19: about $6.95 plus p&p... or $8.95, if, as you should, you "go for" the more modern Trinket M0.))
While I remain excited by the eight pin ATtinys, I am also in the early stages of exploring the ATtiny44/84... a very similar device, also (I'm told!) programmable in VERY nearly the same way as what I've explained in my Getting Started page. (Same software, slightly different connections to the chip.) I'm not sure about the "fuses" thing, but would be astonished if they worked differently. Why change? The 44/84 have 14 pins (vs the 85's 8)... you get 6 extra GPIO lines!! (^_^). Oh... and in the narrow sense they cost about the same. (Both under $3 from major suppliers. (1/18).
I owe my "Eureka! I can do this moment to the ATtiny tutorial at Hobbytronics.co.uk. Sparkfun also has a "getting started with the ATtiny" page.
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In addition to the material covered here, I have other pages with material you might find useful.....
Tutorials about the free database which is part of the free Open Office.
Sequenced set of tutorials on Pascal programming and electronics interfacing.
... and see also the links at the very top of the page!
Click here to visit editor's Sheepdog Software (tm) freeware, shareware pages.
And if you liked that, or want different things, here are some more pages from the editor of these tutorials....
Click here to visit the homepage of my biggest site.
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