Rick, I have used both the STK500 and Atmel-ICE programmers and think they are overpriced. I have migrated to OpenOCD on a Pi. Also avoids vendor lock-in to Atmel and allows ST Micro, Renesas, Freescale, NXP or other uC's to be used. Lady Ada has a nice tutorial on her site beginning here: https://learn.adafruit.com/programming-microcontrollers-using-openocd-on-raspberry-pi It allows programming many uC that use SWD or JTAG and has a debugger. Might also check out some of the other dev boards Adafruit has. Elecrow's crowtail or crowduino boards may be of interest also. Elecrow also manufactures inexpensive boards if you are proficient with KiCad or Eagle and don't mind soldering. Happy hacking, Bob On Thursday 30/01/2020 at 12:50 pm, Rick Engebretson wrote: > As always, thanks for your feedback. > > I have a nice breadboard, and some nice proto boards from > "Protostack," > and 3 Atmel STK500 development kits, and AVR Studio on 5 machines, and > chips, and working software. I'm ready to have some soldering done. > > I would have replied to your kind response earlier. But about 8:30 AM > I > heard a clang outside and a little up the dirt road an old guy was > climbing out of his truck in the ditch. He was very lucky he broke the > sign post or he would have rolled it. He was in his 80s and it took > two > trips from the towing company in Hinckley to get him out. The towing > company needed a bigger truck and a helper. It cost me $200 to get the > old guy down the road without a heart attack, and he was wearing my > brand new pair of dry wool socks leaving his wet socks on my wood > stove. > The old guy was great to meet. But I need civilization. > > I've tried FreeGeeks. Maybe some day I'll donate some nice stuff when > I > think they have people who know what it is. > > > Iznogoud wrote: >> Let's make this topic useful. >> >>> > >> If I knew how to change topics I really want to find somebody who > knows > >> how to solder simple microcontroller boards. Are there any > prototyping >>> shops left in the city?? I would love to do some business with some >>> civilized humans. >>> >> >> You do not need a soldered board to prototype. Use a "bread board" > and put >> it together. Make it work first, then worry about soldering. That is > how to >> do it. >> >> Also, learning to solder --I am terrible at it-- is a great skill to > have. >> And having the right tools for doing it greatly accelerates quality > and speed. >> But right now you do not need this to prototype something. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20200130/5a896743/attachment.htm>