Redesigning suggestion Tiny AVR programmer PGM-11801 to support I2C

Hello,

there is a huge group of Attiny85 lovers and the PGM-11801 is a great tool for it. But its idea of minimalistic requirement to program Attiny85 with I2C devices is completely useless :frowning: As the chip needs to be removed from the programmer. Most of my projects contain I2C OLED screen. And designing some display layout requires countless amount of change-upload cycles. With attiny85 you need continuously remove and attach the programmer. It became some kind of an annoyance that lowers motivation to develop some stuff. I know, that I can use other boards like Arduino Nano attached to for prototyping before moving to attiny85. But I use libraries, that are designed especially for attin85.

A simple solution could be to redesign PGM-11801 to contain a physical or logical switch to separate programmer from the Attiny85 with a push of the button or physical switch. So it will allow keeping all stuff connected to the chip via prototyping pins. So no separate breadboard and jumper wire jungle needed. So we just can make our ideas come true without hassle while sitting on the comfy sofa or travelling by train or car.

Hi DiAleksi and thanks for posting.

It’s important to remember that the Tiny AVR Programmer is just a programmer and not intended to be used as a development board so you’re supposed to remove the chip after programming and plug it into the rest of your circuit.

We may add a jumper to do this in a future revision, but removing the yellow LED on the lower right hand corner of the board will probably allow you to run I2C with the ATtiny on the programmer. It’s possible that a firmware change would be needed as well.