248: I’m Not in Charge!

Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) answer listener emails.

We did a show with Dennis Jackson about transitioning from software to embedded: 211: 4 Weeks, 3 Days

Chibios RTOS: MyNewt or Zephyr may be more worth your time.

Software tool: Beyond Compare for excellent differencing, including folder level

Other people answer STEAM vs STEM (in about the same way we did).

C++ standards for safety: NASA, ESA, JSF-AV rules, and Jason Turner’s C++ best practices.

Elecia played with Javascript to make a watchface for her Fitbit Versa

Chris got a Blackaddr Guitar Teensy Shield which uses the Teensy Audio Library to do amazing guitar effects via code.

Elecia’s Twitter bot is @pajamaswithfeet (Tracery code on cheapbotsdonequick.com)

Making Embedded Systems book

Embedded Patreon

 

247: He’s Not Going to Cut That, Is He?

Jason Turner (@lefticus) of the CPPCast (@cppcast) spoke with us about modern C++ in embedded systems.

Jason’s articles can be found on EmptyCrate.com. You can also contact him there and find out more about his training sessions. Jason’s video channel is on C++ Weekly and includes an ARM emulator written in C++, running on Compiler Explorer.

Jason recommended looking at Odin Holmes’ twitter (@odinthenerd) as well as Odin’s talks from CPPCon (such as his 2017 talk about agent based class design). Odin runs an embedded C++ conference in Germany called Embo++. Also look into Jens Weller’s Meeting C++ conference.

During the show, Elecia was looking at cppreference.com. She would also like to apologize to Bjarne Stroustrup.

Embedded Patreon

130: Criminal Training Camp (Repeat)

Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) spoke with us about laser turrets, tearing down quadcopters, flux capacitors, the moon, and culture at work.

Alvaro's blog

Alvaro's github repositories including Proto-X quadcopter information, Silta bus monitoring, and Skype video message exporter for OSX.

One of the inspirations for taking apart the Proto-X was watching Micah talk about her Coastermelt project. We talked to her about it on episode 101: Taking Apart the Toaster.

One of his reasons for going to Planet Labs was knowing Shaun Meehan, check out his Amp Hour interview.

Daemon by Daniel Suarez

Video of Supercon talk on laser shooting robots

Podcast Award nominations open in early 2016 (since this is a repeat, feel free to ignore this)

Getting a picture of the moon in stereo requires some planning especially in 1949 when Alvaro's great-grandfather took these.

On the slide are two images of the moon that combine to create a nicely stereo image.

245: Tell Me How People Hurt You

Stephen Kraig (@Macro_Ninjaneer) and Parker Dillmann (@LnghrnEngineer), of Macrofab (@MacroFab) joined us to chat about getting hardware and software to work together.

Stephen and Parker are also hosts of the Macrofab podcast.

We compared out-the-ordinary podcast guests. For MacroFab episode 112 it was their conversation with a patent lawyer. For Embedded episode 150 it was our conversation with a tax accountant.

Schematics for the Apollo Guidance Computer (and their Kicad replica on github).

244: Magic And Electrons

Kristina Durivage (@gelicia) described her path getting into making and hardware hacking as a complement to her day job working in front-end software.

Kristina’s portfolio.gelicia.com includes write-ups on her projects (TweetSkirt, Kitchen Playset Game) as well as links to her talks. Or you can skip to her github.com/gelicia repository.

Kristina has a chapter in the 10 LED Projects for Geeks book coming out from NoStarch Press.

Thank you to Patreon Embedded supporters for Kristina’s mic!

Elecia and Kristina both recommend the classic Robert Aspirin Myth Adventure books!

LED in a resin bead!

LED in a resin bead!

243: Pick a Good One

We spoke with Michael Barr (@embeddedbarr) about the Barr Group embedded systems survey.

You can download the 2018 survey at the Barr Group survey page. The Barr Group Embedded C Coding Standard is also free to download (with registration). You can buy a paper copy on Amazon.

Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++ 1st Edition by Michael Barr, also available for free in HTML on the Barr Group site. The second edition is Programming Embedded Systems: With C and GNU Development Tools, 2nd Edition by Michael Barr and Anthony Massa.

The second book was Embedded Systems Dictionary by Jack Ganssle and Michael Barr

Elecia’s book is Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software.

242: The Cilantro of Robots

Christine Sunu (@christinesunu) spoke with us about the feelings we get from robots.

For more information about emotive design, check out Christine’s website: christinesunu.com. From there you can find hackpretty.com, some of her talks (including the TED talk with the Fur Worm), and links to her projects (such as Starfish Cat and a Cartoon Guide to the Internet of Things). You can find more of her writing and videos on BuzzFeed and The Verge. You can also hire her product development company Flash Bang.

Embedded 142: New and Improved Appendages is where Sarah Petkus offers to let her robot lick us.

Keepon Robot (or on Wikipedia)

Books we talked about:

241: One Two Blah Blah Blah Ten

Andrei Chichak and Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) join us to talk about bits and how to manipulate them.

Alvaro is host of the Unnamed Reverse Engineering podcast. His other Embedded appearances are 130, 200, and 215.

Andrei (“Andrei from the Great White North”) works at CBF Systems. His other Embedded appearances are 99, 114, 139, and 200.

Andrei wrote about bit manipulation as part of Embedded Wednesdays on Embedded.fm: Logic in C, part II. Andrei recommends using ISO646.h to reduce confusion around bit manipulation. Also, his suggested calculator is the SwissMicros DM16L

Elecia wrote an introduction to binary and hex.

For more information about programming and binary, see How to Count by Steven Frank

For advanced bit twiddling, check out:

Listener Prashant pointed out an error that goes to shows that we really should have been writing these numbers down and agreed on the zero base to start with:

In Episode 241 @36:45 when Elecia talks about turning on GPIO3, and GPIO3 is the 3rd bit (I am assuming starting at index 0), you write 8. However when Andrei starts explaining he talks of the mask as 100, which has a value 4. I guess he assumed that the 3rd bit meant 3rd starting from index 1.

240: Belgian Waffles

Jasmine Brackett (@asiwatch) spoke with us about @Tindie’s electronics marketplace, this year’s Hackaday Prize, and tips for wearable electronics.

If you want to buy on Tindie, check out their homepage tindie.com. If you want to sell, that is straightforward too: tindie.com/about/sell.  

There is an Embedded contest for the Tindie Blinky LED badge, a nifty little learn to solder kit. Contest ends April 20, 2018 (midnight UTC). You are to send a number to us using the contact link. Closest one wins. One number per person.

You can also get these badges at the Dublin Hackaday Unconference (April 7, 2018, Dublin, Ireland) and at meetups where Jasmine is a presenter.

Thank you to Ben Hencke for some good questions. He talked about his Tindie store with us on 220: Cascading Waterfall of Lights.

Jasmine mentioned the RC2014, homebrew z80 computer kit.

Both Tindie and Hackaday are owned by Supplyframe.

Finally, we talked to Emile Petrone when Tindie was a fairly new thing on 72: This is My NASA Phone.

239: Tweet My Boots

What do you do after space debris, hacking dinosaurs, and judging robots? If you are Dr. Lucy Rogers (@DrLucyRogers), you build an organization devoted to promoting the Making industry: Guild of Makers (@GuildOfMakers)

Lucy’s personal site is lucyrogers.com. She wrote the book It’s ONLY Rocket Science: An Introduction in Plain English.

Guild of Maker’s Twitter hack chats are weekly on Tuesdays at 8pm UTC. They use the tag #MakersHour.

Lucy programs in Node-RED, a visual language.

137: Pausing to Think (Repeat)

Dan Saks answers many questions about C++ in embedded systems: where it works, where it doesn't, and a path to getting started. 

Dan Saks is the founder and president of Saks & Associates. He was a columnist for The C/C++ Users Journal, Embedded Systems Design and several other publications. He also served as secretary of the ANSI and ISO C++ standards committee in its early years. 

We touched on some of his articles:

Andrei suggested Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day, Seventh Edition by Siddhartha Rao as a good primer for experienced C programmers reluctantly learning C++.

NOTE: The contest already ended.

 

238: My Brain Is My Toolbelt

Chris and Elecia answered some listener questions about dynamic memory and shared code. Then Elecia gave a presentation about ShotSpotter, the gunshot location system she worked on.

Elecia enjoyed The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies by Jason Fagone.

Ben is the editor of HackSpace, a new magazine about making (and hacking). It's produced by Raspberry Pi, but it's technologically agnostic. The first issue is free online.

The ShotSpotter presentation was originally given with Sarah Newman at the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of women in computing.

237: Break All the Laws of Physics

Jan Jongboom (@janjongboom) of Mbed (@ArmMbed) joined us to talk about compilers, online hardware simulators, and inference on embedded devices.

Find out more about Mbed on mbed.com. The board simulator is at labs.mbed.com (Mbed OS Simulator). The code for the simulator is on Jan’s Github. Mbed Labs also has the uTensor inference framework for using TensorFlow models on devices.

You can see some of Jan’s talks and his blog on janjongboom.com.

Jan will be running a workshop at SxSW called Changing the World with Open, Long-Range IoT on March 10 in Austin, TX. Additionally, he will be hosting an IoT Deep Dive Workshop on LoRA on March 14 (also in Austin, TX).

For background on LoRA, check out the recent Amp Hour episode with Richard Ginus.

236: The Concept of Delayed Gratification

Roger Linn (@roger_linn) gave us new ideas about musical instruments, detailing how wonderful expressive control, 3D buttons, and keyscanning can be.

Roger’s company is Roger Linn Design. We talked extensively about the LinnStrument, some about the AdrenaLinn for guitar, and only a little bit about the analog drum machine Tempest.

A key matrix circuit is a popular way to handle a large number of buttons but it falls prey to n-key rollover. Roger adds force sense resistors to this (FSR example at Sparkfun).

If you have an idea for an instrument, Roger has already written his response to your request for a prototype. Roger gave a keynote address at ADC '16 about the LinnStrument, including showing the sounds it can make.

OHMI Trust is the one handed musical instrument society enabling music making for everyone.

 

Roger mentioned some other expressive instruments including:

235: Imagine That, Suckers!

We spoke to author Robin Sloan (@robinsloan) about his books and near-future science fiction.

Robin wrote Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore and Sourdough.

Robin’s website is robinsloan.com. Go there for some short stories, sign up for his newsletter and check out his new ‘zine (also at wizard.limo). Oh! Don’t forget his blog, including a description of his neural net for audio generation and for writing.

Some books Robin suggested:

234: The Good Word About AI

Dustin Franklin of NVIDIA (@NVIDIAEmbedded) spoke with us about the Jetson TX2, a board designed to bring AI into embedded systems.

Dusty wrote Two Days to a Demo, both the original supervised learning version and the newer reinforcement learning version. In general, check out Dusty’s github repo to see what’s new. Also, The Redtail project is an autonomous navigation system for drones and land vehicles based on the TX2.

The NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference is in San Jose, CA, March 26-29, 2018. Your coupon for 25% off: NVCYATO

The Jetson TX1/TX2 ChallengeRocket contest ends February 18th.

You can find Dusty on on the NVIDIA forums.

233: Always the Wrong Way

Chris and Elecia chatted about listener emails, and other stuff and things.

Elecia wrote a book called Making Embedded Systems, if you want to see the chapter about interrupts and timers, hit the contact link on embedded.fm.

We also recommend our blog, Chris Svec wrote about the MSP430 from a microprocessor point of view (ESE101) and Andrei Chichak wrote about an ST processor with a more pragmatic and C focused view (Embedded Wednesdays).

You can support the podcast through Patreon.

Kalman filter explanation video with Pokemon

Ben Krasnow's Applied Science YouTube channel

Usbourne's books for teaching kids electronics and programming (the free '80s ones are near the bottom)

Formally verified microkernel: seL4 Microkernel

The first Pokemon games used every programming trick there is for optimization

STM bought Atollic and released TrueStudio Pro for free for STM parts

232: Blob Is a Good Word

We spoke with Jackson Keating (@jacksonakeating) about Bluetooth Low Energy, going over GATTs layouts and the general BLE usage.

While Jackson prefers the Bluetooth spec as the best reading explanation, Elecia liked the Adafruit BLE introduction. She wrote about some of her initial experiences with different chips and Chris Svec wrote about BLE roles. We all agreed that the examples and tutorials from your chip vendor is a good place to get experience.

A random UUID generator is uuidgen on Mac or online on uuidgenerator.net.

Elecia mentioned 108: Nebarious, an Embedded episode where we talked about how BLE lacks security.

Jackson suggested looking at the Core Bluetooth API for IOS development as well as the Nordic and LightBlue apps for debugging.