AVR Mega8 Used for Building RSS Reader

The project aims to develop a simple hardware RSS reader which utilizes an AVR microcontroller connected through a serial cable to a computer.

All the hardware required to build this AVR mega8 based RSS reader is provided by the development board Dragon Rider 500. The design of the device includes assorted capacitors and resistors, 8MHz crystal, HD44780 LCD screen, DB-9 connector, MAX232 chip for serial communications, AVR Dragon for programming the microcontroller, and the ATmega8 microcontroller or any MCU that contains enough pins for all connections and a USART.

In the design, some creativity will be used to route the connections on the Dragon Rider. Since the USART needed for the serial connection uses PD0 and PD1, the Port D will not be connected directly to the LCD header in this project as it is normally done. Also, since PB6 and PB7 are in use for the external crystal, Port B will not be used.

A ribbon cable was plugged into the headers for the LCD, Port B and Port D and the proper routes were made by using jumper wires. The RSS feeds are scraped by using the python script.

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