ATTiny2313 with Arduino

Note - you'll want to have completed or looked over this post as well. It shows how to make the Arduino Sketchbook folder if you don't know how to already, as well as setting up the 'core' file and such.

So, the ATTiny85 is good and everything; it's small, it's easy to program, but it only has five usable pins. Plus, it's memory isn't too great. Sometimes, you need more like 17 pins. That is when the ATTiny2313 comes in handy. It is a twenty-pin chip, has UART (your basic serial connection), I2C, SPI... a lot more than the Tiny85 (Which only has USI, or Universal Serial Interface). In this post I'm going to show how to install the cores, which is really the same as installing the ATTiny core, but there are a few hints.

Using Arduino with ATTiny's

    I really like the Arduino IDE. I also like the language that is much simpler, if less powerful, than the common Assembly/C code for other AVR's. However, Arduino uses a very limited chipset. You can use ATMega168, ATMega328, ATMega1260, ATMega 2560, and thats about it. Many times I want a lower cost, smaller form-factor chip for a project. The ATMega chips have lots of memory, interrupts, timers, and suchlike, but sometimes that's overkill. That's why I like to use the ATTiny line.

A flock of three ATTiny85's and an ATTiny 2313 with a lone ATMega328 outside.