"Arduino Mega" photos up on lusorobotica.com

Maybe a converter pass through shield would be useful to swap the MEGA I2C pins to the original pins, maybe it could have some dip switches to let the user switch between the original annoying pin spaces and a version with the correct pin spacing as well.

I think I might wait a while for the MEGA, I'm hoping seeedstudio will do a version with mini-usb, and the white power plug adapter (and hopefully all the Pins)

While most pins are the same as an Arduino, the I2C pins have moved (from 4-5 to 20-21). Any Arduino shield, or project, using I2C will require re-work for the MEGA.

SPI has also moved.

-j

There are some other changes that are more subtle.
The timers associated with specific PWM pins have changed, Interrupt 0 and 1 are on pins 20 and 21, Input capture for timer1 is not available, and pins 14 through 19 are no longer shared with the analog pins

thinking of the future: sure that after 'mega' comes 'hyper', then 'ultra', but what's after that?
:wink:

Obviously, after mega comes giga, tera, peta, ...

Don't forget about the Arduino ÜBER.....

Naaaa, i think it's just going to be calle Arduino 7

:slight_smile:

There are some other changes that are more subtle.

All of which makes me wonder why the bullet just wasn't bitten (lol) and the shield gap fixed--instead of leaving people thinking shields would be compatible out of the box.

--Phil.

@hailey
you are thinking too technical. i'm more into comic style.

All of which makes me wonder why the bullet just wasn't bitten (lol) and the shield gap fixed--instead of leaving people thinking shields would be compatible out of the box.

Bah, fixing SPI and TWI shields is a software problem; you just have to exchange SW protocol support for HW protocol support. "Fixing" the gap would require a PCB spin for all the shields; MUCH harder. Sort of. (I am reminded of some other HW problems that I have had to fix in software...)

So why didn`t they go the seeduino route and have a second set of sockets with .1 spacing.

That way if they made that the standard you could use both old and new standards of shields.

Bah, fixing SPI and TWI shields is a software problem; you just have to exchange SW protocol support for HW protocol support.

Are you volunteering? :slight_smile:

Has anyone checked the 1280 to see if the SPI and TWI hardware is driven the same way (register names, etc) so that code for a mega8 SPI shield would work software-wise on the 1280, if the pins were just connected? I just haven't had time to check this yet.

-j

Hmm looks like someone has already started on sotware TWI/I2C:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1235009256/7#7

-j

looks very nice

i'm a member at this website, it's portuguese, but has plently of brasilian users aswell, it seems like arduino mega is real, it has it's own IDE but i havent been able to find anything related to buying this, has anyone seen anything related to buying this item?

it has it's own IDE

No, it is integrated into the standard arduino IDE as of version 0015.

-j

i just meant an IDE came at the same time as the mega. ::slight_smile:

Hello,
Does someone knows a way to connect a JTAG interface to the Mega ? Even if some addtional wires are needed I would be interested by any solution.

Hello,
Does someone knows a way to connect a JTAG interface to the Mega ? Even if some addtional wires are needed I would be interested by any solution.

It is easy. Follow the following pinout:

TDI = Analog 7
TDO = Analog 6
TMS = Analog 5
TCK = Analog 4
RST = Reset

JTAG port pinout is:

1 TCK
2 GND
3 TDO
4 VTr (target voltage)
5 TMS
6 RST
7 Vsupply
8 NC
9 TDI
10 GND

You need to activate JTAG fuse, and upload your own firmware. You also need a JTAG debugger that works with ATmega1280 (I guess the only one out there is JTAG ICE MKII from Atmel).