FT232R USB to Serial breakout board
At one of the meetings this Spring, someone asked for a good (cheap) way to get GPIO out of a modern PC, without a serial or parallel port. Here's one way.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=718
Potential hardware for a LUG hacking project?
No, I don't work for Sparkfun.
Sparkfun do have a lot of handy odds and ends though :-). I've used the FTDI chips for many years now and they seem to work very nicely on Linux. Also, since the FTDI chips will work with Linux on pretty much any processor with a USB port, they make it easy to move user code from a PC to something else (like an embedded sytem) if it's ever required.
Scott,
The "Breakout Board for FT232RL USB to Serial" is almost exactly what I was looking for... maybe better.
My soldering skills are poor, so this could be either good practice or a means of destroying the product.
It brings to mind a question about the level of expertise you're expecting of participants in the upcoming (as yet unconfirmed) September "lab" meeting.
I would really like to learn more about hardware hacking, but considering how much more advanced you are, are you up for teaching basics to noobs like me? I'd like to think I'm teachable, but it's quite natural to want some other people at your own level.
Thoughts?
Bogart
On Jul 18, 2010, at 12:09 PM, scott-ellis wrote:
>
Scott,
Have you tried to run Perl on one of the small boards? I know Perl can talk serial to the FTDI chips via USB from full-size linux. And scripting capability is really nice to have when one starts playing with I/O.
-bill