I'm posting this to help anyone using 0022 who's got an Uno and an 8x8 RGB Matrix & Serial Backpack from Sparkfun. Out of the box, the matrix was exhibiting some tearing and what looked like off-by-one errors when using the RGBMatrix library to control it. These errors were supposed to be fixed in RGB_Backpack_v5.hex.
If you've got a Duemilanove, you can use ArduinoISP sketch to upload the new firmware. I've got an Uno, so I thought I wasn't able to upload the firmware, per:
This afternoon, I stumbled on a patch for ArduinoISP here:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1286589145
I applied the patch manually, saved it as a new sketch. Then, I did this:
- Uploaded the patched ArduinoISP.
- Unplugged from USB.
- Disabled the autoreset.
- Connected the Matrix ISP pins in the prescribed manner.
- Connected the USB cable and let the Arduino boot.
- Ran the following from a terminal:
avrdude -P /dev/tty.usbmodem621 -b 19200 -c avrisp -p m328p -F -v -e -U flash:w:RGBBackpackv5.hex
And it worked. The firmware uploaded. Once it was done, I
- Unplugged the USB cable to power off the Arduino.
- Removed the disable of the autoreset.
No more "tearing" letters, no off-by-one problems.
Hope that helps someone.