I bet that using devices that you have built is an exiting feeling. So why not to listen MP3 songs with your own MP3 player. So Michael does. He have been developing a simple portable MP3 player powered by Atmega128 microcontroller and VLSI VS1011b MP3 decoder IC.

MP3 player reads songs from MMS/SD data media where also playlists and skins can be stored. Player is powered from LiIo/LiPo battery which can be charged easily with included charger in to circuit itself. Color displays (128×128 pixel and 256 color) is taken from Nokia 6610 cell phone so plauer can work in both – text and graphical modes.

All firmware is written in easy accessible WinAVR C language. Media supports FAT32 file system so there is no problem to write songs directly from PC. Other features include:

Written in C for WinAVR compiler based on avr-gcc v3.4.5 or higher including avr-libc v.1.4.3 or higher

• Direct M3U playlist support;

• ID3 v1 & v2 tag support ;

• Color skin/theme support;

• Adjustable LCD contrast, backlight brightness and auto off time;

• Sass enhancer in VS1011b, volume and balance;

• All adjustable options are stored in EEPROM;

• Serial IO interface;

• 3.5mm audio jack;

• External audio via docking port;

• One key handling;

• Battery voltage monitoring;

• Auto power off on low battery;

• Remote control via serial interface;

• Information output for firmware and bootloader via serial interface

Seems to be nice fully functional DIY gadget project.

This project may be useful for TV testers. TV pattern is generated by Atmega8 which runs at 16MHz and it may produce 14 different color patterns that you can see on regular TV.

Circuit has RGB to PAL converter built in but of course RGB signals also can be used as most TV’s now accept RGB signal (scart connector). Project files are available for download.

Seems like everyone is shifting their own ISP programmers from COM and LPT ports to USB. And there is a reason for this – computers arre getting mobile, LPT and COM ports becoming obsolete. But almost everywhere you can find USB port, so it is logical to have USB programmer rather then old style.

ladyada have developed very tiny USB ISP programmer which also can serve as USB-SPI interface. Thisis really low cost and low component count programmer built under Attiny2313 AVR microcontroller. It is compatible with AVRDUDE and AVRStudio and works under Windows, Linux and MacOS.

This is not the fastest programmer but it can guarantee write speed of1 Kb/s and read speed of 2Kb/s. Other good feature is that it comes with both – 6 and 10 ISP connector types. You can build this adapter easily as all necessary files are available for download, or you can simply order a kit.

Jörg Wolfram has been developing interesting project so called AVR-ChipBASIC on Atmega32. Simply speaking this is a basic language programmable chip computer which his capable to run basic programs and with ability to display results in RGB TV screen.

This is almost fully functional computer system that have many functions including:

• RGB-TV 23 rows with 30 colums, NTSC/PAL per jumper selectable;

• prepared for FBAS encoder;

• 256 characters with pseudo-graphics, 8 colors;

• PS2 keyboard;

• simple sound (1 channel, 1 voice, noise);

• serial port (1200Bps only) with charge pump;

• parallel printer port, also usable for IO and ADC;

• I2C-port for data EEPROM and temperature sensors;

• ISP port is also able to handle Atmel dataflash;

• mostly Tiny-BASIC compatible with many improvements;

• 4 programs to 51 lines are stored in flash;

• built-in full screen editor;

• serial load/store via text transfer, listing print;

• screenshot function;

• integrated monitor with single step, breakpoints.

Programs can be edited and run directly on TV screen and run from AVR chipbasic menu system. Also program can be saved, transferred via terminal or even printed. Firmware is updated constantly so newest version of project can be downloaded here.

Hunz have started interesting project automatic JTAG locator of pins. Probably every embedded device has JTAG interface, but sometimes it may be real pain to find out right pinout in order to debug, program or read device memory.

What JTAG scanner does. It simply tests if all signals are connected properly. It allows to read and write every pin so it can be used for reading and writing to almost all MCU’s and memories like FLASH or SDRAM. Read more about what is JTAG and how JTAG scanner works here. Of course project isn’t finished yet. You can join Hunz in developing process. Once you have this device in your hands you are one step towards hacking hardware devices.