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Multi-platform development
The title of this article is perhaps a bit misleading: it’s not just about developing code which needs to run on different platforms, it’s also about using different programming languages.Over the...
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Meet the new RF73 driver
There’s a new wireless radio driver in town for the JeeNode Zero and other µC boards running Mecrisp Forth. It’s calledRF73 but it is in fact intended to be used with the RFM70, RFM73, and RFM75. These...
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Interactive Forth over RF?
Since Mecrisp Forth uses the serial port as its interactive console, the most direct way of connecting to a µC board is as follows (double-line arrows represent wired connections):When using some...
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Redesigning the JET model
The JET project (JeeLabs Embello Toolkit) is the continuation of the earlier HouseMon project (in turn the successor of JeeBus). It’s been a slow starter, but definitely not shelved. The JET “Hub” has...
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Turning JET into a live system
The previous article about the redesigned JET model mentioned Folie as sitting between a USB interface and MQTT, presumably to publish received RF messages on MQTT, and to subscribe to an MQTT topic so...
View ArticleUse any STM Nucleo as programmer
The Nucleo boards by STMicroelectronics cover a fascinating range of STM µC’s, and are provided for non-commercial use at very low cost. It’s a great way to get started, because they include a built-in...
View ArticleFrom eBay "C8"µC to BMP tool
Next in line in the “let’s create an ARM programming tool” series is this little board: It’s basically a breakout for the “STM32F103C8T6” chip (yes, it does take getting used to). That’s 64 KB of flash...
View ArticleThe HY-Tiny can also act as BMP
As last example in this “let’s make an ARM programmer” series, the HY-TinySTM103T: It’s a great little STM32 board with a nice set of features: 128 KB flash, 20 KB RAM, the usual mix of peripheral...
View ArticleARMinARM can set you free!
Software development for ARM µCs can be done in many ways. There is the Arduino IDE, and the Arduino-STM32 project specifically for STM32 microcontrollers, but there are more ways to skin this cat. One...
View ArticleA plethora of tools on the Pi
The ARMinARM code is available on GitHub, and is a major convenience for this particular approach. Just get a reasonably fresh install of Raspbian running and you should be all set to install lots of...
View ArticleDeveloping in C/C++ for STM32
Let’s now use the ARMinARM setup to try out a few of the included example programs. CMSIS The CMSIS library is supplied by STM, as ARM partner and µC manufacturer: $ cd...
View ArticleDeveloping in Lua for STM32
Lua is a very interesting small programming language, in the same way as Perl, Python, Ruby, and Tcl are - i.e. a dynamically-typed “scripting language”. Here’s the blurb: Lua combines simple...
View ArticleDeveloping in JavaScript for STM32
Last in this little series is another language: JavaScript. There is a mini-implementation of JavaScript called Espruino which can operate in even more cramped environments than Lua (and MicroPython,...
View ArticleTiny Basic with room to spare
One of the first tricks we teach a microcontroller (any computer really), is to raise its level of abstraction, by programming it in a “higher level language”. All computers are really awkward at...
View ArticleCreating a virtual 6502 chip
Ok, we’ve seen Tiny BASIC, and how it turned a µC into a complete, albeit limited, programming environment. It took a mere 17 KB of flash memory. Now watch this: [emu6502] 10496 bytes 6502 EhBASIC...
View ArticleAltair BASIC via 8080 emulation
Some of this retrocomputing emulation goes quite far. Some emulators running code for these old machine can generate a video out signal - with an entire community around the computers people used to...
View ArticleJavaScript in a 128 KB µC
As final entry in this episode of “fitting an interpreter into a 128K STM32F103”, there is one other very interesting development to consider. It’s called the Espruino project. Sure enough, we can fit...
View ArticleTFoC - The Fabric of Computing
So what is it with computing with limited resources? How can kids with enough time on their hands, a dose of ingenuity, and access to very limited (in today’s terms) computers create all sorts of...
View ArticleMove over, John von Neumann
Computers do their work one step at the time. Over, and over, and over, and over again. The breakthrough came when not only the data they manipulate but also the instructions that drive their actions...
View ArticleBuilding a MultiComp-based Z80
Let’s see if we can build an FPGA-based system. The biggest challenge is that everything involved is completely different from software and hardware design. It’s a new ball game! We will need: some...
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