Hi,
   I have been using optiloader running on an UNO to burn the bootloader onto 8's, it detects the 8 and burns a suitable version of optiboot. You do need to add a new board to boards.txt but its pretty simple to do.

Duane B

Hello and good day to you Duane,

So sorry to bother you about this but i am so very very interested to find out how to make optiboot burn the bootloader onto an Atmega8 chip but would optiboot also be able to burn the bootloader to an Atmega16 too the same way ?

I have burned the bootloader to many Atmega328P-PU chips but havent a clue where to start on changing this info to allow optiboot to burn Atmega8's - please please help if you can, i would be so very grateful for your assistance, also...

Please could you tell me the differences between an Atmega328 and an Atmega8/Atmega16 or a webpage link that shows the differences please please ?

I really have a thirst for learning about these microcontrollers and now and again always find a Grnius like you in the forums !

Please help !

hello & Good-Day to you all !!

I am looking to buy 5 microcontrollers but want the ATMEGA328 but there are two types and i can find any difference in the data sheets about them, please could anyone help me find out the difference ?

There is Either the:

ATMEGA328 PU                     OR:

ATMEGA328P-PU

and i am really struggling to find the list of differences as i did find a webpage that details all the differences (i think there was 4 or 5 differences but cant remember it was so long ago & didnt bookmark the page! )

Please could any of you legendary Arduino Guru's help me with this ???

Many many thanks in advance for any help given !

Ahhh yes, the good ol' Caveat Emptor !

ive been seeing this phrase pop up in mostly ALL the places ive tried to track down help on finding the correct/exact/similar components for this PCB...!

Its really difficult to get hold of surface mount components cheaply, i dont mind stocking up 100 of each but most of the big name online electronics stores offer them in 2000 unit reels and theres no way i'd need that many, 'cut tape' would also get quite expensive!

Honestly ! lol

Thats Absolutely Great ! Many many thanks for confirming this, i'm truly grateful !
;-)

Hello & Good day to you all,

ive only started learning electronics this year but have been soldering all my life, only tinning wires and really simple desoldering/soldering stuff, nothing compared to soldering an Arduino Clone PCB !

Well, i'd bought 4 RBBB kits http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/rbbb-kit and soldered them together, worked 1st time and uploaded Blink Sketch to all of them, worked like a charm with some help from 'LOG' @ instructables,lol, but in error i had previously bought an Arduino 2009 Bare SMD PCB from ebay and thinking about giving it a try to solder SMD components on the 2 PCB'c i have but have 2 questions:

1. The 2009 Arduino (Duemilanove)http://arduino.cc/en/Main/arduinoBoardDuemilanove mainly began life with an ATMEGA168 but can i simply just use the ATMEGA328 instead as the pin-out pin connections are identical ???

2. EBAY is STILL Selling plenty of these 2009 Bare SMD PCB's http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-board-PCB-Arduino-Duemilanove-2009-AVR-ATmega328P-PU-168-DIY-Soldering-/170816324819?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&hash=item27c57244d3 but there isnt much support for a full spec components list and/or alternative components, ive scoured this site but its got to 'info-overload' - lol - and i have been at-it for 5 weeks now trying to find anywhere that either sells all of the SMD components for this PCB as a 'Kit' of if such a kit doesn't exist (likely-story) the my 2nd question is, WHY ON EARTH are these people selling BARE SMD PCB's on ebay if there isnt much support for them ?!?

NOTE:
I really LOVE the fact that the 2009 version has the USB connectivity 'onboard' and really want to try my hand at surface-mount soldering, its going to take me a few weeks to collect up all the components anyway so if any of you Arduino-Jedi's out there have already soldered a 2009 PCB, please could anyone point me to a good few places that'll help me out on my SMD Adventure ?!!!!!?

NOTE 2:
I'd stumbled upon this post:   http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1273287995 which has helped me out immensely but its a 'read only post'
but thanks to everyone who already commented/helped there !

Many many thanks in advance for your time & help, i'd be most-grateful !