{"id":2270,"date":"2023-09-17T23:08:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-17T21:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencetronics.com\/greenphotons\/?p=2270"},"modified":"2025-06-16T18:37:44","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T16:37:44","slug":"vscode-for-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sciencetronics.com\/greenphotons\/?p=2270","title":{"rendered":"VSCode for everything"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atmel<\/del> Microchip Studio<\/h2>\n

1 1\/2 years ago now I have finally abandoned Microchip (Atmel) Studio for programming AVR microcontrollers.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I have been using Atmel Studio from the very first day I have been programming AVR microcontrollers and I have been following it through the version 4 to 7. But already a couple of years ago I had been looking into PlatformIO, but I failed to configure it for anything but Arduino-programming, which I didn’t want to do primarily.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

PlatformIO<\/h2>\n

However, in the meantime I have been programming more and more Python as well, and discovered the advantages VSCode has over IDLE which I had been using so far. So together with my students I looked again into VSCode and PlatformIO. By default it is still configured for the Arduino framework ans as such it should completely replace the Arduino IDE – honestly, I cannot understand why anyone still uses the classic Arduino IDE, when VSCode with PlatformIO offers great syntax highlighting, auto-completion, inline-help,…<\/p>\n

But how can I use PlatformIO for my full toolchain from writing the code to uploading it using avrdude? The secret lies in the configuration file platformio.ini, which is part of every PlatformIO project.\u00a0 A student of mine showed me how to configure platformio and I had to find out that the avrdude which comes with platformio is somewhat limited in its functionality. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Configuration<\/h2>\n

The necessary changes to the project’s platformio.ini which I use are: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For an ATmega328 with 1 MHz<\/h4>\n
[env:ATmega328P] \r\n<\/span><\/span>platform = atmelavr \r\n<\/span><\/span>board = ATmega328P \r\nboard_build.f_cpu = 1000000UL \r\nupload_protocol = custom \r\nupload_flags = -pm328p \r\n<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 -Pusb \r\n\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>-B4 \r\n\u00a0 -cusbasp \r\nupload_command = \"C:Program Files (x86)AVRDUDESSavrdude.exe\" $UPLOAD_FLAGS -U flash:w:$SOURCE:i\r\n\r\n<\/span><\/span><\/pre>\n
For an ATmega328 with 8 MHz<\/h4>\n
[env:ATmega328P] \r\n<\/span><\/span>platform = atmelavr \r\n<\/span><\/span>board = ATmega328P \r\nboard_build.f_cpu = 8000000UL \r\nupload_protocol = custom \r\nupload_flags = -pm328p \r\n<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 -Pusb \r\n\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>-B4 \r\n\u00a0 -cusbasp \r\nupload_command = \"C:Program Files (x86)AVRDUDESSavrdude.exe\" $UPLOAD_FLAGS -U flash:w:$SOURCE:i<\/span><\/span><\/pre>\n
For an ATtiny25 with 8 MHz<\/h4>\n
[env:ATmega328P] \r\n<\/span><\/span>platform = atmelavr \r\n<\/span><\/span>board = attiny25 \r\nboard_build.f_cpu = 8000000UL \r\nupload_protocol = custom \r\nupload_flags = -pt25 \r\n<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 -Pusb \r\n\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>-B4 \r\n\u00a0 -cusbasp \r\nupload_command = \"C:Program Files (x86)AVRDUDESSavrdude.exe\" $UPLOAD_FLAGS -U flash:w:$SOURCE:i<\/span><\/span><\/pre>\n
For an ATtiny13 with 1.2 MHz<\/h4>\n
[env:ATmega328P] \r\n<\/span><\/span>platform = atmelavr \r\n<\/span><\/span>board = attiny13 \r\nboard_build.f_cpu = 1200000UL \r\nupload_protocol = custom \r\nupload_flags = -pt13 \r\n<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 -Pusb \r\n\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>-B4 \r\n\u00a0 -cusbasp \r\nupload_command = \"C:Program Files (x86)AVRDUDESSavrdude.exe\" $UPLOAD_FLAGS -U flash:w:$SOURCE:i<\/span><\/span><\/pre>\n
My videos on the topic\r\n\r\n