Hi, I’m new to makerbuino (just finished mine) and I am wondering how to connect mine to my computer. I plugged the red UART board into my makerbuino and I have it connected to a usb into my computer. The red light goes on in the board but nothing shows up on my computer. Is there something I’m doing wrong? I have a mac if that makes a difference.
I don’t own a MAC but i’ll try to help anyway 
Is there a new COM-Port visible? Your MAC should have installed a driver for the FTDI RS323-to-USB converter.
You should be able to select a COM-Port within the Arduino IDE.
sorry i don’t know what a COM port is but nothing shows up on my makerbuino screen or computer screen. is there something i need to download? @Bl4ckM4ch1n3
Your MAKERbuino can’t show you if it’s connected to your MAC or not.
There should be a program on your MAC called “System Information”. It’s similar to the Device Manager from Windows. Connect the UART board again and open the System Information software. Your MAC should scan everything that is connected to it.
Within the System Information software there should appear something called COM1, COM-Port or similar. But i don’t know if you’ll find it within the USB-Devices list or somewhere else. Maybe you’ll need to search a little bit. If you can’t find anything you’ll need to install the drivers manually. But let’s try the System Information thing first and let me know if you’ve found something.
Rather than digging through the system information, the most new-user friendly way of seeing if it’s working correctly is to plug it in and see if the Arduino IDE recognises it.
You’ll need to visit the Arduino website found here and install the IDE for your operating system(Mac OS X in your case).
Once you’ve installed that, open it up and navigate to the “Tools” menu up in the top left of the window and set the “Board:” to “Arduino/Genuino Uno”. Next, select the “Port” menu and check which serial ports are on that list(They’ll probably be called “COM1” or something similar, it could also potentially be empty), then plug in your Makerbuino(make sure to turn it on) and re-check the Port menu, if it is communicating with your computer correctly then there should be a new port in that list that wasn’t there previously.
Doing it this way, not only have you checked that the board is communicating properly, but you’re already set to start making your first Makerbuino program. If you’re new to programming then you’ll want to find a guide online that starts you off with the basics with the Arduino language(It’s a slightly modified version of C), otherwise, you’re ready to start learning the basics of the Makerbuino itself; I’d recommend looking at the code of several simple Makerbuino games and read through those to work out how they work(the list of Gamebuino specific functions found here are invaluable when writing your Makerbuino programs).
Thanks so much @Dalemaunder I found the board on the arduino IDE and it is connected! Thanks for your help too @Bl4ckM4ch1n3 ! I was wondering if I could debug some of the games on my makerbuino using the arduino program? For example I can’t play the single player pong because it only gives me options to be the host or join. It does this on both the single player and 2 player pong. Also some other games won’t let me go back to the sd loading screen and just redirects me back to the game. When this happens I just reset it and would like to know if there is a way to fix these glitches. Thanks again though guys!
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My pleasure.
You could certainly try to debug them and the Arduino IDE is a very good option for doing that in(the Makerbuino is basically a big, fancy Arduino Uno), but I don’t know where you’d find the source code for them (unfortunately, you can’t easily convert a .HEX file back to its original code to my understanding). A lot of the default games and their source code can be found on the Gamebuino website here, but neither of the pong games are on that list.
A thought on the games that don’t let you return to the game selection screen, does holding the C button for a few seconds work instead of just pressing it? For example, the Etch-A-Sketch style game I made was coded to require a 1 and 1/2 second press to take the player back to the splash screen as I wanted to use the C button as a clear screen button.
Edit: Before you even need to ask, here is a set of instructions for converting your compiled Arduino code to a .HEX file for anything you make or modify.
Edit 2: Also, if you do make your own .HEX file, make sure the file extension is in all caps, “.hex” does not work(it took me a solid hour to work out why my first game wasn’t showing up on the game select screen).
I’ve tried your technique multiple times, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work for me. Is there anything else that I could try?
What exactly isn’t working?
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We’ll require a bit more information, where along the process do you encounter problems?
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