Re: prototype board options

[jonnosan <jonnosan@gmail.com>]

On Feb 7, 1:19 pm, Mike Willegal <m...@willegal.net> wrote:
> I've made my own Apple II cards from ordinary double sided PCB stock.
> It was easier than I first thought it might be.  I haven't bothered with
> a bread or proto boards since learning to etch my own PCBs.
>
> http://www.willegal.net/photo/repair/besttester.htm(bottom of page)http://www.willegal.net/appleii/appleii-fwboard.htm
>

Looks nice. I'm not sure I trust my construction and drilling skills
enough though. It's 20 years since I did woodwork at school, but I
still remember how badly my projects used to turn out.

> You might want to put a second AVR on the board and use some sort of
> serial protocol (I2C or RS232) to communicate rather than running ribbon
> cables around.  One AVR handles the user interface and the other handles
> the bus interface.  Communication between them is via the serial link.

Good idea. I had already come to the conclusion a single AVR wouldn't
be enough (I've used up 16 pins already just on the LCD and keypad,
which (once you take out the power, ground and reset pins, doesn't
even leave enough pins on a 40pin AVR for A0..A15 and D0..D7, let
alone funky things like DMA and READY which I hope to play with some
time in the next few months.