In the past, ARM microcontrollers have been available only in packages which are rather unfriendly for hobbyist use. However, NXP is now producing two Cortex-M0 microcontrollers in DIP packages, which are very handy for breadboard use and trough-hole soldering. The chips are LPC1114 in DIP28 package and LPC810 in DIP8 package. LPC1114FN28/102 has 32 kB flash and 8 kB ram, which is actually quite nice and allows running even a small RTOS. LPC810M021FN8 has only 4 kB flash and 1 kB ram, which is not much but still suitable for small bare metal applications. Continue reading “Pico]OS & NXP DIP Arms”
Object-oriented approach to embedded programming (with C++)
In my real, daytime job I have been working with object-oriented languages like Java, C++, C# and python for several years. On the contrary, hobby stuff with microcontrollers has always been pure C or assembly. Although I understand perfectly resource constraints of the embedded world, the limits are not totally as strict as they used to be: modern microcontrollers tend to have more and more memory and processing power. Because I also very firmly believe that object-oriented design really rules when creating complex systems, I decided to do a little expermenting what it would mean in Pico]OS embedded world. Continue reading “Object-oriented approach to embedded programming (with C++)”