I purchased 2 Atmega328 chips, the one with bootloader and the other without it. I burned a 328 bootloader in the virgin chip using a parallel programmer.
Now the two chips are working the same way. In a Diecimila board, they work OK with no problems at all. In the NG board, the sketch already loaded works, but I can't upload a new sketch.
I have also a Diecimila board on which I've removed the auto-reset functionality, because I don't like it. On this board, the behavior is the same that in the NG board (sketh run, can't upload).
I think the problem is that the 328 bootloader is intended for auto-reset enabled boards. Is there any other 328 bootloader that work on "legacy" Arduino boards?
Is there any other 328 bootloader that work on "legacy" Arduino boards?
I'm running a '328 on a pre-NG arduino - it's the very first USB version. (old-skool points for me)
I have the default bootloader on the '328. Because it is assuming there is the autoreset function (which our boards don't have) the "window of opportunity" for the PC to start talking to the bootloader is very small.
I have found a way to program it that is 100% reliable for me -
[1] Hit the "upload" button in the IDE
[2] Watch the "RX" built in LED on the arduino board. AS SOON as it flashes, push the reset button on the arduino board.
This way the IDE and the bootloader are "N*Sync" (ha) and the program uploads.
Push the reset button on the arduino board immeadiately when you see the on-board RX LED flash. For me the LED flashes 3~4 seconds after I push the upload button in the IDE, but that depends on the size of the sketch and what other programs I'm running on my PC at the time.