issue 21 - Embedded systems newsletter

Embedded systems #21

Hardware

Blind Reverse Engineering a Wireless Protocol - or - Amateur Signals Intelligence
A feedback, errors and failed experiments included, on how to reverse engineer a digital wireless signal without access to, or knowledge of the transmitter.

DDR4 memory interface: Solving PCB design challenges An article on how to add DDR4 to your next PCB design.

2048 ON ARDUINO
You have probably heard of the has-been famous game 2048. In this article the author build a console from scratch (hardware+software) to play 2048 game.

Software

Book of Elementary Algorithms and Data structures
A free book on basics. Every programmer should at least know in which cases they could be useful.

What is memory safety?
To achieve something, you have to know it well. This is also the case for the the not so obvious concept of memory safety.

Using GNU’s GDB Debugger, Memory Layout And The Stack
A pragmatic tutorial on the memory layout of programs and how to debug them with GDB

nope.c node.js for C programmers
nope.c is a new alternative to add a webservice to your embedded platform. It is very light but also very new, so take the time to go through the code and see if it can be suitable for you.

CPU Cache Flushing Fallacy
If you have some pain to understand how CPU cache works this article can be added to your reading list.

Software optimization resources
Everything you need to know about optimizing code for x86 and x86-64 family microprocessors.

Misc

Programming with Punched Cards
Dale Fisk tells the story of his first contact with programming and the punch cards.

ICFP Programming Contest 2014
The international programming competition this year is about software and hardware of the eighties. Very interesting piece of history. (The competition ends today)