Arduino IDE + Serial Monitor for ATtiny with FTDI adapter as programmer (Linux)

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1

Background:
Under Linux I am able to use the avrdude as programmer for an ATtiny85 chip. On the ATtiny85 I use the SoftwareSerial library with the same RX/TX pins, which are used by the programmer.
For the serial connection I tested several terminal programs, but all are based on the SIO driver. The avrdude instead uses the FTDI driver. So, for each compile/download/test cycle I had to load/unload the SIO driver with „sudo modprobe -r ftdi_sio“

To impove this, I implemented my own “Serial Monitor” program based on the same FTDI driver which is used by avrdude. This simplified the compile/download/test cycle.
But I don't like the Makefile approach.

This led to the idea to use the Arduino IDE also for my ATtiny projects.

I was able to add the ATtiny core to the IDE but the avrdude coming with the IDE seems to not support the "ft232r" protocol.
But with some patches on 'platform.txt' and 'programmers.txt', I was able to use my own version of avrdude.

so far so good...

But the Serial Terminal is still a problem and I have no idea how to solve that problem. Any hints or other solutions?

/Joe

2

Do you have an Uno? Or other compatible board that can be used as a programmer?

3

Yes, I have an Uno board and I can use the Uno board to program the ATtiny. But how can I use the Uno board as connection between the ATtiny and the Serial Monitor without addition pin connections or reprogramming the Uno board?

/Joe

4

http://www.ernstc.dk/arduino/tinycom.html

Start at "Options 3-4 Using TinyISP".

5

Thanks for this hint. I will try it.