There may be some time in the future, but not immediately.

Theoretically, any Mega 2560 should work, even a clone. I have always used the arduino.cc Mega 2560 myself.

Hi Chris
Although I have not tested it myself, the Atmel-ICE should work with the book. I see no reason why it should not as the Atmel-ICE supports 8-bit AVR microcontrollers. It makes no difference whether the AVR is on an Arduino board because the ICE connects directly to the AVR via the ICSP header.

You can use it to update the current bootloader, restore a bootloader that has been overwritten and program a bootloader to a new microcontroller.

Hi again Dave
I finally figured out what is going on with the missing template file issue. The missing file problem was actually answered here: http://wspublishing.net/avr-c/atmel-studio-proble...

Further to the above answer, I discovered the following:
1) If Atmel Studio is in Standard mode, the template files need to be in Documents - Atmel Studio - 7.0 - Templates - ProjectTemplates (as described in the book)
2) If Atmel Studio is in Advanced mode, the template files need to be in Documents - Visual Studio 2015 - Templates - ProjectTemplates

So the solution to using the templates in both modes is to copy them to both destinations.

When I wrote the book the build of Atmel Studio that I used did not have the Standard and Advanced mode, so this problem never arose. I have updated the article on this page with some notes on fixing the problem in yellow. (If you do not see the yellow blocks, just refresh the page to update the CSS.

I just updated to Atmel Studio 7.0.1006 and my Arduino templates disappeared from the New Project dialog box. To fix the issue I copied the templates to Documents - Visual Studio 2015 - Templates - ProjectTemplates
After restarting Atmel Studio the templates were back. It seems that this is a bug in the newer build of Atmel Studio.

Hi Dave
Engineering can be frustrating at times, especially with software issues like this. This problem has more to do with the tools than the C language. The idea of the templates was to make it easy for beginners in C to send and receive data between the PC and embedded system using printf() and scanf() functions. I will post an article on how to actually make your own template files as soon as I get a chance. All the templates do is add code to a project to initialize the serial port and hook the printf() and scanf() functions to it. That said, here is some info that may help with the driver issues.

From the Atmel Studio 7 release notes (release notes can be found at the bottom of this page - http://www.atmel.com/tools/ATMELSTUDIO.aspx ):

2.4.1. How do I get my Tool to be Recognized by Atmel Studio?
This should happen automatically, but sometimes the Windows driver does not recognize the tool correctly. To correct this, you have to check that the tool is listed under the Jungo item in the device manager in Windows. If your tool is not listed, try to find it under Unknown devices. If it is located there, try to reinstall the driver by double clicking the tool, click the Driver tab and choose Update Driver. Let Windows search for the driver. The driver should be reinstalled and the tool should be displayed under Jungo. Now, the tool should be usable from Atmel Studio.

2.4.4. No Tool is recognized by Atmel Studio, but the Driver seems to be Working
On some systems the Jungo driver is known not to activate properly. This can be seen as the WinDriver unit under Jungo in the device manager in Windows is missing. To remedy this, try the following:

1. In your Device Manager, right click on your computer name (the very top item) and choose Add Legacy Hardware.

2. Click next, and choose to install the hardware manually.

3. Choose the Show All Devices item on the top of the list, and click next.

4. Click the Have Disk button.

5. Navigate to the folder Atmel USB which is located under the install directory for Atmel Studio (typical location is C:Program Files (x86)AtmelAtmel USB).

6. Choose the usb32 or usb64 folder depending on the architecture you are running.

7. Inside there should be only one file named windrvr#.inf, where the hash is the revision number for the driver. Double click this, click OK, and the WinDriver should appear in the list. If you get an error message, you probably have chosen the wrong architecture.

8. Click Next until finished.

9. Verify that the WinDriver has appeared under Jungo.

The tools should be working straight away, but you may have to restart your machine if you are still
having problems

It is strange that you are having problems with the template files. There was a change between Atmel Studio 6 and 7 as to where the template files are installed, that is why I asked which version you are using.

I can only suggest reading this article: http://wspublishing/avr-c/atmel-studio-problems-solutions/
If you install the exact version of Atmel Studio as described in the above link that was used when the book was written, you should not have any problems. I can only think that an update to Atmel Studio is causing the problem. Installation of the template files is very simple, they only need to be copied to the correct folder and then they will appear in the new project dialog box.

Are you using Atmel Studio version 7 or 6?

Thanks for your comment :)