The Bus Pirate, created by Ian Lesnet and featured on Hack a Day, is a troubleshooting tool that communicates between a PC and any embedded device over most standard serial protocols, which include I2C, SPI, and asynchronous serial - all at voltages from 0-5.5VDC. This product eliminates a ton of early prototyping effort when working with new or unknown chips.
The main components of the Bus Pirate are PIC24FJ64 processor and an FT232RL USB-to-Serial chip. A miniB USB connector is populated on the board, and when you plug it into your computer it will come up as a virtual COM port. The pinout of the 2x5 I/O header is documented here.
Features
Dimensions: 53 x 30 mm
Documents: