Digilent Inc.'s I/O Explorer board is a microcontroller-powered USB based input/outputexpansion peripheral for PC computers. The I/O Explorer is useful for introductoryto intermediate programming classes to give students the ability to interact withI/O devices outside of the PC.

USB Peripheral Devices
The I/O Explorerprovides RC servo connectors and a number of built-in I/O devices, such as switches,push buttons, LEDs, rotary encoders and a speaker/buzzer. Also included areDigilent Peripheral Module (PmodTM) connectors that allow access to and controlof devices external to the I/O Explorer. The board may be used either as a USB bus powered device or as aself powered device. The board provides analog input channels and analog outputchannels via on-board Analog to Digital (A/D) and Digital to Analog (D/A) converters.There is also a Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) interfacefor asynchronous serial communications.

Microcontroller Development
The I/O Explorer can also be used as a microcontroller development board. Itfeatures two

Atmel AVRmicrocontrollers, one having USB device capability. All the user requires is aprogramming cable or in-system debugger to load firmware into the microcontroller.Digilent supplies the firmware images needed to restore the I/O Explorer to thefactory configuration as a USB peripheral device if it has been reprogrammedwith user defined firmware.

Click here for the complete schematic.

USB I/O Experimentation Board