HW Programming
A good hobby to build your own hardware. I use only linux operating systems, so maybe you cannot do exactly the same if you use other operating system.
WARNING!
Building your own electronic device can cause electric shock or hardware failure!
Do not make anything if you don't know exactly what you are doing!
NO WARRANTY!
Why do you would like to make your own device?
If you think that you can make it cheaper, you're wrong. I think mostly it's more expensive, but if you would like to learn or you have a good idea and you couldn't find good solution, you can try to make it yourself.
Some interesting projects:
- Arduino TFT LCD Touch Screen Tutorial
- Call and Message using Arduino and GSM Module
- Obstacle Avoiding Robot using Arduino and Ultrasonic Sensor
- Zoe the Zero quadcopter - Raspberry Pi Zero
I2C
An old two-wire communication beetwen devices invented in 1982 by Philips Semiconductor. Mostly it used to communicate with e.g. EEPROMs,sensores. Nowadays it is used in most of electronic devices (e.g. computers, mobiles,...)
I2C-bus specification and user manual, including new UFm specifications: http://www.nxp.com/documents/user_manual/UM10204.pdf
Atmel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Atmel Corporation was a designer and manufacturer of semiconductors before being acquired by Microchip Technology in 2016. It was founded in 1984. The company focuses on embedded systems built around microcontrollers. Its products include microcontrollers (8-bit AVR, 32-bit AVR, 32-bit ARM-based, automotive grade, and 8-bit Intel 8051 derivatives) radio frequency (RF) devices including Wi-Fi, EEPROM, and flash memory devices, symmetric and asymmetric security chips, touch sensors and controllers, and application-specific products. Atmel supplies its devices as standard products, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or application-specific standard product (ASSPs) depending on the requirements of its customers."
PonyProg
PonyProg is a free utility to manipulate/read/write e.g. I2C EEPROMs, Atmel, PIC chips. It supports only serial and parallel connections to PC.
AVR Downloader/UploaDEr
AVRDUDE is a free utility to manipulate/read/write Atmel chips.