For those of you who are interested, the IO badge (V1) is moving forward. I have the majority of the LCDs on order. The majority of the badges will have 16x1 character LCDs on them (with no blacklight) and a few of them with a 16x2 Character LCD. (with backlight) I will only be making about 30 badges since everything is coming out of my pocket on this project. I would estimate the number to be slightly less due to possible manufacturing defects.

As the design goes right now, the badge will have 5 push buttons. 4 input buttons to control the software and 1 reset button, which I may replace with a header jumper instead. The power will be run off of a 9v battery and it will include an FTDI header to program the board with other firmware (No FTDI chip on board). It will run the ATmega328 (surface mount) with the Arduino bootloader.

I am setting up a parts list and will be putting in the order for all the components the same time as I send the boards out. I plan on posting the firmware on this site a day or two after I give (or sell) them away. I may try to sell them (cheap) to recover some of the costs in producing these. I haven’t made a decision on that yet.

I am still active in ccowmu.org (wmu computer club) and they hold a bi-annual LAN party at the parkview engineering campus (aka PLAN). The plan is to distribute these at the spring event. For more information on the PLAN check out whatistheplan.com.