Murchlabs

When I made the first prototype for my ATtiny and ATmega programming shield, I decided to call it the ArduinoISP Deluxe Shield. “ArduinoISP” came from the fact that it would rely on the ArduinoISP sketch in order to be useful, and the “Deluxe” part was because while there were already other ATmega or ATtiny programming shields out there, none could program as many different microcontrollers as my shield could.

The shield was originally designed solely for myself. It was a way for me to easily program ATtiny and ATmega microcontrollers that I use in my projects. But, since I had 9 extra PCBs leftover, I decided to order more components and sell assembled shields to those that might be interested. Well it turns out that a lot of people liked the shield, so I continued to make and sell the shield, even refining the design and adding more features.

As I sold more and more shields, I knew that I would likely eventually run into a bit of a problem. You see, Arduino is a trademarked name and as such, you can’t make and sell a product using the Arduino name without permission from the trademark holder. While I haven’t had any complaints from the Arduino folks, I decided that I would nip the problem in the bud and preemptively change the name of the shield to avoid any future issues. So, I’ve decided to rename it from the ArduinoISP Deluxe Shield to the TinyLoadr Shield.

To date I’ve sold my shields on every continent except Antarctica. People have told me how much they love my shield and how useful it is to them, which makes me happy. I’m glad that something I created has been able to help people with their own projects.