Andrei drew the short straw. His punishment was to write a blog post on boolean logic and bit manipulations. That way Elecia and Chris Svec could refer to the post rather than having to explain it themselves.
This first part is a useful review of boolean logic. If you find it useful, please buy Chris Gammell a beer.
Read MoreBecoming familiar with basic binary and hexadecimal (hex) math will make your career
in embedded systems far more enjoyable.
A wise man once said:
Take a kid to a playground and he’ll play for a day. Teach a kid to build a playground and he’ll get frustrated, bored, and wander off.
Today I’m going to teach you to build an assembly language playground. If that sounds fun, read on! If not, then feel free to wander off.
Read MoreIn the final serving of the Embedded Wednesdays crash course in C, Andrei gives a bowlful of function goodness. Parameters, return values, headers, and prototypes. Sprinkle some prototypes, add #includes on top, then add some Good Habits for keeping you regular. But you can't have all of this wholesome goodness without talking about the inevitable void.
In French, the Rice Krispie guys Snap, Crackle, and Pop are known as Crik, Crak, and Crok. All of those names start with C. Coincidence, I don't think so. Pull up a chair and grab a heaping helping of C functions. (Corny? No, I Oat to know how that is Spelt)
Read MoreIn this Embedded Wednesdays post, we discuss the generalities of functions in the C language.
Read MoreThis week we complete our three-part look introduction to peripherals, GPIOs, and blinking lights.
By the end of this post you’ll understand how to bend physics to your will with a little bit of typing and mouse clicking. We’ll alter the flow of electrons on a circuit board and make electricity flow through an LED and turn a light on.
This is kind of magical, people, so check it out.
Read MoreThis week, we look at the statements in the C language that alter the flow of execution. For a good time, If you are looking to switch to C, do read this post while you're here.
Read MoreThis week I explain the MSP430’s GPIO control registers.
Read MoreWalking along the water’s edge one afternoon, we found a piece of styrofoam with cable ties, shielded wires sticking out of it, and a somewhat illegible note. Of course, we took it home.
Read MoreThe first C program that everybody gets going is Hello, World! This week Andrei introduces the basic structure of C programs.
Read MoreHow many words does it take to turn on a light bulb? 1200. And that's just Part 1.
Read MoreThis week, Embedded Wednesdays takes a look at arrays in the C language.
Read MoreIn microcontrollers, as in real estate, it's all about location.
Read on to learn about microcontroller memories.
Read MoreBB-8 has a patrol mode where it acts autonomously. An exploration of that leads to an introduction to RTOSs, comparing processors, and programming languages. Happily, it all ends in a section that makes some suggestions for you to try out.
Read MoreBooleans, how difficult can that be, right? TRUE or FALSE, 1 or 0.
This week on the Embedded Wednesdays post, we look at the bool data type that was introduced in C99. Experienced C programmers should read this too, right? TRUE.
Read MoreAnswer these twelve questions to find out what kind of communication bus you are!
Read MoreDo you write software for a living? Or design hardware? Or maybe some of each? While the particular projects any two software or hardware designers do may be worlds apart, we can characterize what we do in the same way: our work is 20% technology and 80% psychology.
Read MoreThis week Andrei gives an overview of the char type in the C language. C has some issues with character strings and Andrei goes into buffer overflow problems and missing terminators in the strcpy function. This a post that should be read all of the way through by all C programmers. Make sure you can spot the bugs in the code.
Read MoreOnce upon a time, I met an early-career engineer weighing two job offers. My advice centered around interesting work and supportive teams. However, it is also important to understand your options.
Read MoreI started with simple state machines last week. This week I want to talk about more complex state machines and interrupts. These are software topics but we’ll get back to the hardware soon.
The karaoke buttons that control music playback are far more complicated than either its disco button or the quadcopter’s power on sequence; if you press play on the karaoke, what happens? What if the door is open? What if there is no CD? What if it is already playing?
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