the KUPO (killer usb prototyping option)

The KUPO


full size

Features:
AT90USB1287 Microcontroller
48 Programmable I/O Lines
8 Channel PWM
USB Bootloader
JTAG pins accessible
Acts as a USB 2.0 Full-speed/Low-speed Device
Ability to run as a USB OTG Reduced Host
Programmable Serial USART
SPI Serial Interface
2-wire Serial Interface
External parallel memory interface
All headers are lined up so you can use any pref board to make a shield

Example mini Shield that uses the external memory interface
The FUK (Flash Update Key)

see full size
The FUK allows the KUPO to be used as a thumb drive with sizes of 128MB to 8GB

Total cost looks to be about 40$ unless many people want one then I could buy more parts in bulk.

An Arduino shield adapter should be easy to design.

There is so much potential for this board :slight_smile:
would not be hard to get working with the arduino IDE

What do you think?
Questions?
Comments?
Suggestions?
Any mistakes I made?

If it was Arduino-compatible it would indeed be cool. :slight_smile:

--Phil.

This is a good start. I would call this board "Arduino-like" rather than compatible because it doesn't use the same series of AVR microcontrollers and doesn't have exactly the same capabilities. In my view to be compatible you have to at least use a mega168 or mega328.

I assume you have seen the Teensy and Teensy++. These boards use the same "direct to USB" solution as you are proposing. A lot of work was done to get the bootloader right and also then to also have a way to add it to the Arduino IDE. Do not underestimate this effort.

Looking at the memory daughterboard reminds me of something very similar I did for our mega128/mega1281 based devices. Given the 16 data/address lines I not sure how you can address more than 64K. You will need to dedicate some additional I/O lines for bank switching. Only the XMega can natively support more than 64K external RAM.

Here are some pictures of the Oak Micros 64K RAM daughterboard for our devices. The plug and receptacle are Hirose DF9 21-way.

Yes, similar boards can indeed run Arduino code.