About: My name is Randy and I am a Community Manager in these here parts. In a previous life I had founded and run the Instructables Design Studio (RIP) @ Autodesk's Pier 9 Technology Center. I'm also the author of…

Follows are directions for programming the ATtiny microcontrollers using the Arduino IDE. In plain English, this is how to program 8-pin Atmel chips as you would normally an Arduino. This is cool because the ATtiny is tiny, and - well - this allows you to make tiny things that don't need a big ol' microcontroller.

The instructions I have posted here are pretty much the same as instructions given by the incredibly awesome High-Low Tech Tutorial. I posted my version of the instructions here because I plan to make a couple of upcoming projects using ATtiny chips and figured I would show my process.