issue 82 - Embedded systems newsletter

Embedded systems #82

Happy summer Embedded Systems people! Enjoy issue #82

Hardware

Hardware backdoors in x86 CPUs
This backdoor concerns the VIA C3 CPU a processor produced in 2001. This processor series targets among other things ATM and healthcare hardware. When you know the lifcycle of this kind of products it’s absolutely possible to still cross this processor

Reverse engineering a DNA sequencer
A nice article that sums the work done on DNA sequencer and how this work one day can make DNA sequencers affordable.

An Introduction to the ARMV8-M Architecture
ARM continues to improve its series of architectures for real-time embedded systems. Here it is an introduction of the last generation.

Software

awesome-c
A curated list of awesome C frameworks, libraries and software.

Mathematics behind Comparison #3: Ordering Relations in C++
This article is an explanation of the fundamentals concepts behind the new C++ operator called the spaceship operator. The article gives as well few concrete tips to actually implement the spaceship operator.

The Undefined Behavior Sanitizer
UBSAN is a runtime undefined behaviour detector. It has a lot of built in checks like the usage of misaligned or null pointers or the overflow of integers.

Misc

μWWVB: A Tiny WWVB Station
What to do when you have an atomic clock watch but you are in a location not covered by the WWVB signal? Yes, absolutely, you hack a stand for your watch with a built in WWVB transmitter.

Tindallgrams
Tindallgrams are NASA legendary memos written by Howard Tindall. Tindall was put in charge to oversee the software development of the guidance system. To put back on the right track this development he started to write memos that are now called Tindallgrams.

Where Vim Came From
Vim first line were written in 1988 but its fundations are way older than that. I was not aware of all these details. I’m sure you’ll like to read it too.