I am only 16, but I have a lot of experience with microcontrollers. I need an Arduino for a project. I have never used one before, but I have a couple friends who highly recommend them. It does need to be embedded. I want to get two ATmega328's with the Arduino Bootloader to use in my project. I know that I also need a USB to Serial converter to program the chips with the Arduino Software. I was originally going to get the FTDI basic breakout board from Sparkfun, but I then started looking at the Bus Pirate. Can you use the Bus pirate in Transparent UART mode to program the plain ATmega328 chip with the Arduino Bootloader? The Bus Pirate is more expensive than the plain FTDI breakout board, but I could use it for many other projects as well. The only problem that I see is that the FTDI breakout board has TX, RX, CTS, DTR, PWR, and GND, where the Bus Pirate only has TX, RX, PWR, and GND. Does the Arduino really need the CTS and DTR to function?
Thank you!