GAT Standard

GAT stands for

• Great Addon Technology
• Greater Addon Technology
• Greatest Addon Technology
• Whatever the fuck you want it to mean

Who doesn't want to hand out GATs at a convention?

This standard is incomplete.

Why not "SAO" or "Shitty Addon" or "Simple Addon" or...

A few reasons.

• A small group of people just shoved the SAO idea and on everyone at a contentious time
  • The initial SAO standard was nice, but was created during a time of drama
  • The initial SAO standard had problems which caused addons to be easily lost
  • for v1.69bis in particular, there were posts boasting with pride about owning "half the world's supply" of connectors
• Is heavily tied to social media influences
• SAOs often devolve into stolen artwork on a PCB, especially the first ones
• Often times, less skill is expressed in creating a SAO, and this is seen as desiriable
• Often times, people have fear and don't push themselves when creating a SAO
• We don't do shit work around here (well, try not to anyway)

If we made our own standard completely, nobody would use it. For this reason, GAT remains generally hardware compatible with v1.69bis from a power supply and physical mounting standpoint. However, GATs must adhere to the following:

• No stolen artwork, unless there's a good piratey fucking reason
• Creator must try to learn something new, provide something for others to learn from, or state a point
• Always try to be greater than shitty

Communications Protocols

Pins 3 and 4 of GAT devices can coexist on an I2C bus.

This bus has the following rules:

• In general, badges are masters and addons are slaves.

  • For addons requiring master support, they are allowed to bus master, but should ensure the bus is available for doing so.

  • Badges are always bus masters or inactive. Badges are never slaves.

• GAT I2C bus is NOT shared with any other peripheral or component.

  • If a badge or addon has I2C slaves which communicate with an on-board microcontroller, they must be on an independent bus from the GAT connector I2C bus.

There is no specific communication scheme currently in place.

Pins 5 and 6 are reserved for whichever use the addon sees fit to use.

• Badges should generally not connect pins 5 and 6.

  • Exception is for when the badge needs additional IO to connect to specific addons. In this case, care should be taken to properly identify the addon before driving pins 5 and 6.

• Addons can use pins 5 and 6 for various purposes:

  • UART, for bootloader or secret comms
  • Debug
  • Special secret games
  • Extra IO to specific host badges

Pinouts

Standard 6-pin devices should adhere to the following pinouts, as seen from the badge:

Power Delivery Only
/-----|  |-----\
| nc   nc  3V  |
| nc   nc  GND |
\--------------/

I2C Slave Support
/-----|  |-----\
| nc  SDA  3V  |
| nc  SCL  GND |
\--------------/

Debug
/-----|  |-----\
| CK  SDA  3V  |
| IO  SCL  GND |
\--------------/