AVR Dongle

This circuit is intended to program AVR controllers such as the AT90S1200 via the parallel port. The circuit is extremely simple. IC1 provides buffering for the signals that travel from the parallel port to the microcontroller and vice versa. This is essentially everything that can be said about the circuit. The two boxheaders (K2 and K3) have the ‘standard’ ISP (in system programming) pinout for the AVR controllers. The manufacturer recommends these two pinouts in an attempt to create a kind of standard for the in-circuit programming of AVR-controllers. These connections can be found on many development boards for these controllers. The software carries out the actual programming task.


It is therefore necessary to have a program (ATMEL AVR ISP), which is available as a free download from http://www.atmel.com. The construction of the circuit will have to made on standard prototype board, since we didn’t design a PCB for this circuit. This should not present any difficulties considering the small number of parts involved. We recommend that inexperienced builders first make a copy of the circuit and cross off each connection on the schematic once it has been made on the board. This makes it easy to check afterwards whether all connections have been made or not.