Here it is the #70 issue.
Like some people say, it’s better late than never. Anyway, let’s start this issue with this article of DesignNews: The Soon-to-Be-Extinct Embedded Software Engineer . This is at least controversial, isn’t it? Personnaly, I hope that embedded software development will stay more than that for a very long time. Don’t forget to send me an email if you find or write an article, Embedded Systems Weekly exists to help good writings to reach their readers. Enjoy #70!
Hardware
Reconstructing an Apple II+ on an FPGA
A 2007 project where Stephen A. Edwards implements an Apple II+ in VHDL to run on an Altera FPGA. At this time, Stephen was a professor at Columbia University. The technical report of the project is available as a PDF entitled
Reconstructing an 80’s-Era Home Computer with Programmable Logic
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FAT16 IDE Interface
This prototype shows how to interface a SPI to an IDE. The AVR send commmand to a CF through its SPI port. The parts list and the PCB layout are provided.
Software
A guide to better embedded C++
The goal is to refactor a function manipulating GPIOs in a quite unreadable way into something maintenable. Michael, Lead Software Engineer at RC Module does a great job in this article. He makes it clear.
Nerves v1.0 Released
More and more languages try to find their place in the embedded software field. Nerves is the Elixir language, most advanced project, for embedded systems. If you are interested in functional languages, you should definitely try Nerves as it reaches this major milestone.
Functional programming for embedded systems
Another article on functional programming. This sounds like a trend, isn’t it? To be fair, in this one the author, Sasha Grunert, shows how functional programming pradigms can be used in C++.
Misc
Ocelot Arcade System
What about an arcade system that uses an oscilloscope as a display? Everything is processed in realtime by a dsPIC33 microcontroller. The pictures and the screnshots are fascinating.
PacVim
Vim is still the number one editor among the embedded software developers (or maybe only in my heart). For those who are not onboard, PacVim is a kind of Pacman that will make you learn the “magical” Vim commands.
Don’t try this at home: Chip Decapsulation
Mikhail Davidov is decapsulating chips and it’s amazing!