Hi,
I decided the other night to make a 'removable programmer' (max232 derivative based)....
I started playing with Arduino as a breadboard with a bare chip (did eventually purchase a Uno R3). I spent quite a bit of time (once the bootloader was loaded) wiring up a max232, debuging, swearing, etc the initial communications. Every time I put a new chip on a bread board, I have to find one of my other bread boards for referance, make all the connections, swear because I missed something etc, rather than just getting to work on the project.
Anyway, my idea was: Since Reset, TX and RX are all at the edge of the chip, put a +5 and GND in the rows to the left of the atmega chip, insert a 5 pin header in, and put a removable serial programmer so I wouldn't have to re-wire the max232 every time. Also, with the AtMega chip and the max232 and a reset button, about 1/2 the board is used up.
I also added a reset button (with the pull up resistor) to the little board (14 row of a perf board) since I was connected to the reset pin anyway.
Next version (though of this as I was finishing up) will have an extra pin to connect to the next digital pin beside TX/RX (chip pin 4 digital pin 2), that can be jumpered/switched hi/lo for serial debug enable/disable via code (and if the board isn't there, debug would be disabled)...
anyway, after all of the above blathering, where would the right location be to post a write up/schematics?
Thanks
Allan