What Are the Tricky Parts of Embedded Development?
In this installment in my continuing series about the tricky parts of embedded systems, I discuss some important areas that are often overlooked or undervalued.
Read MoreEmbedded Software: The Tricky Parts
This is an overview post for the whole tricky series. It will get updated with new posts as they are published.
Read MoreCreative Destruction Board
If we learn so much from failure, why don’t we embrace it a little more fervently?
Read MoreBest of Embedded Blog 2016
Wonder what you missed on this blog in 2016? I can help you with that.
Read MoreDiscovery: UART Input
Andrei is back from his Christmas hiatus and brings us a post introducing getting input from a UART.
Previously he had covered output using printf, a helper function called _write, and the HAL routine to send data out of the UART. This time we use the other half of the UART, a different HAL routine, _read, and getchar.
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Strategies for Dealing with Impostor Syndrome
Lars wrote in and asked if we've ever done an episode of the podcast discussing impostor syndrome and overcoming self doubt.
Yes... yes we have.
Read MoreWhat Good Is a UART? Command Console!
What good is a UART? Why is it the second thing I get set up? (The first being the ubiquitous blinking light.)
Read MoreESE101: Finally an MSP430 Timer Example!
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of clocks -- and lights -- and MSP430 timers."
Discovery: UARTs Part 3 - The Final Step
This week Andrei explains how to get a UART working using Cube. How to get printf working. And introduces the newlib standard library.
This is Andrei's final blog post of 2016, and it'll be useful for your Christmas break project where you learn about ARM processors using CubeMX and ST's Discovery board.
Read MoreAn Introduction to the Tricky Parts of Embedded Systems
This a blog post is part of a series based on the Embedded Systems: The Tricky Parts talk that Elecia gave to the Silicon Valley IEEE Computer Society. A video of the talk is available on YouTube.
Read MoreDiscovery: UARTs Part 2 - Connections
Using the UART on our Discovery board requires a little extra hardware before we can use it for debugging.
This week, Andrei reviews some of the ways to hook the Discovery board to your PC.
Read MoreESE101: Configuring MSP430 Timers
Last time I explained the basics of what a microcontroller timer is and gave an overview of how timers are configured.
This time I’ll walk you through how to configure an MSP430 timer. We’ll use it to blink a light! (By now you’ve probably realized that most embedded system demos involve blinking a light. I’m pretty sure the singularity will look a lot like a rave.)
Read MoreDiscovery: UARTs Part 1
This week, Andrei introduces the UART. A useful data communications peripheral with a long history.
Follow along as Andrei gives the low down on bits and bauds, hardware handshakes, and inverting buffers.
Read MorePodcast Suggestions
Listener Spetty asks what our favorite podcasts are, both engineering and non-engineering.
Read MorePerfect Everyday
A conversation about careers led me to realize I'm not sure what I want to be when I grow up. I started thinking about it from a different perspective.
Read MoreDiscovery: Button Interrupts
This week, Andrei discusses how our button can be used to generate an interrupt. Other examples include engine management computers. What things should you look out for when using interrupts.
Don't miss the photo at the bottom of the post for a useful hack.
Read MoreDiscovery: Follow The Bouncing Bit
This time, Andrei looks into switches, their bouncy nature, Schmitt triggers, hardware, and software debounce techniques. Join us for a look into the resistors and capacitors leading to port PA0. See oscilloscope traces in black AND white! All of this and more in this embedded.fm blog post!
Read MoreEmbedded Software: The Tricky Parts (Video)
Elecia gave a talk to the Silicon Valley IEEE Computer Society. You can watch the video.
Read MoreResources for Software Best Practices
A former colleague asked for resources about software best practices. Here's Embedded FM's starter list!
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Discovery: Buttons
This week Andrei is writing about buttons. First a bunch of the background stuff that goes along with buttons, how the positrons scoot around and finally make it to the processor. Then he takes a look at the HAL code used to read the button position.
How hard can it be? Well sit down and get comfortable, this won't hurt a bit (we'll leave the hurting bit for next time, Bwa ha haaaaa).
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