Long story short, I messed up the fuses on an $11 widget, so I spent $500+ on tools to learn how to fix it

I've covered the basics of using my new STK600 to program the the included ATMega2560 MCU card, however I'm about to start messing with fuses / loaders.

Any idea what boot loader is on it by default. (I assume there is one, if the ISP programming works?, or is that a bad assumption?)

I've read enough to know, the choice of a bootloader is subjective/application specific, but is there a standard (ie. STK500) bootloader I can use if I break it

I've read the bootloader FAQ, and done lots of searching, but all my keywords are too damn common

Thanks,
and feel free to point me to some good reading...

 

If you program your atmega using ISP, then you don't need to use a bootloader.

You don't need to use a bootloader application unless you want to do things like self-programming of the flash memory (updating firmware over UART for example).

 

Which is kinda what I thought. So, as long as the SPIEN fuse is set, I'm good to go. The only reason I was wondering about the MCU card's loader is because of the BOOTSZ setting. 4k made wonder if there was a loader installed. Now that I say that I guess I should learn how to just look and see what is located in flash

 

The BOOTSZ just happens to have 00 (4096W_1F000) as its default value. So it is easy to think that there is a bootloader present when you see that.

But it won't jump to the bootloader section on reset unless the BOOTRST fuse is enabled.

 

Doh, I knew that from the FAQ

That's why I need more hands on.. to retain the info

Thanks