The OWOWOD Library

OWOWOD is One Wire / One Way Output for Debugging library. It allows you to output text from the Tinusaur (ATtiny85 microcontroller or other similar), though USB-to-Serial or TTL converter (based on PL2303, CH340G or similar) and to the computer screen using COM port monitoring tool. Why one would need something like that? It would’ve … Read more

Tutorial 003: Making Sounds with Buzzer

So far we’ve used a LED as output to produce light of different colors and intensity (Tutorial 001 and Tutorial 002) but we haven’t generated any sound yet. In fact, that isn’t very difficult to do. We will use a buzzer for output. According to Wikipedia … the buzzer or beeper is an audio signaling device, which may be mechanical, electromechanical, … Read more

The Tinusaur Plays Conway’s Game of Life

UPDATE 2022: The MAX7219LED8x8 library, now renamed to MAX7219tiny has now a new home at tinusaur.com/libraries/max7219tiny. Check also this MAX7219 & ATtiny85 tutorial to learn how the library works. I was playing with the MAX7219LED8x8 library and writing some code for how to use a simple scheduler to automate the task of outputting the buffer to the LED 8×8 matrix. … Read more

TinuDHT – ATtiny Library for DHT11

Ever wanted to do a project with that cheap DHT11 temperature/humidity sensor and did not want to go the Arduino way but with a simple ATtiny85? You probably know already about  the issues with the existing Arduino based libraries running on the ATtiny microcontrollers, but can’t deal with them. TinuDHT is our answer to this. TinuDHT is a … Read more

Tutorial 002: Fading LED x1

Another beginners tutorial is on the way – this time about a fading in and out LED. This is simple tutorial that shows how to connect a LED to the ATtiny85 based Tinusaur board and write a program that makes the LED to fade in and out using PWM (pulse-width-modulation) technique. Note: The code in this tutorial does not use the … Read more

February: Quick update

Tinusaur Project Milestones

This is quick update for what is happening in the lab. The design of the board is pretty much final. We consider this as release candidate marked as RC1 – it probably won’t change much or not at all. It is available on 123d.circuits.io at this address: http://123d.circuits.io/circuits/116696. You can order the PCBs there or if you prefer … Read more

Tutorial 001: Blinking LED

Tinusaur Tutorial 001: Blinking LED

UPDATE: New version of this tutorial is available on the Tutorial 001: Blinking LED x1 page. This is a very simple tutorial on how to make a LED blinking. Since the Tinusaur board is a very standard ATtiny breakout board this could be applied to almost any such other board. The code was tested to work with … Read more

Oscilloscope-like Circuit – Preview

This is a oscilloscope-like circuit for the Tinusaur, it is not a real oscilloscope but could be used as a base for one. It is built on top of the Tinusaur board (Atmel AVR ATiny85) and Nokia 3310/5110 LCD (PCD8544 controller). There is also simple preamplifier for the electret microphone connected to the ADC of … Read more

Tinusaur Proto v0.1 m1 – Prototyping and Design Considerations

I have finally managed to finish the first version of the schematics and PCB‘s and to order the first 3 pieces. This work is based on some previous experiments and designs. Schematics The schematics is nothing special – it is the well known minimal configuration for the ATtiny plus just few addition components – some of them … Read more

The Tinusaur – What is it

Briefly, the Tinusaur is a minimal micro-controller hardware configuration based on Atmel AVR ATtiny family of products and more specifically those with DIP-8 case such as ATtiny25/ATtiny45/ATtiny85, ATtiny13 as well as their variations. The goal of the Tinusaur project is to have a simple, cheap and accessible quick-start platform for everyone interested in learning and … Read more