RE: Op Ed: A Microcontroller Course for Everyone!

rohitrangwani — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 05:53:06 GMT

“it's their problem”

nic one

RE: Op Ed: A Microcontroller Course for Everyone!

DAB — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 19:04:17 GMT

Hi Dave,

I completely agree. As soon as you begin to learn about an MCU you will find that you need to do your homework on both the software (SW) AND the hardware (HW).

Back in the 1970's we used to have great screaming matches over deciding if the HW or the SW was at fault. Most of it was just good clean fun, though it scared the hell out of management. Both sides lacked the proper tools to locate and resolve a lot of the problems we encountered.

Remember these are days before good logic analyzers were available.

My best story is about a system I programmed and was due to go through acceptance testing while I was on vacation.

When I returned there were half a dozen people outside my office screaming that the ATP failed because of my software. So I asked the question "It worked fine when I left, what did you do to the system?" The reply was "Nothing, we just fixed the Hardware!"

It turned out that their "Nothing" made the test signals incredibly stable, which forced the device under test to miss the discrete signal changes. I had build the DUT with noice detection software filtering that looked for consistent signal changes and ignored single level changes. It worked fine in the field as the noise from all the other electronics kept toggling the values to the point where it would detect the changes and position the equipment.

The end of the story was that I had to add software to the test unit to simulate signal noise so that the DUT would work normally.

So much for fixing the hardware.

It was experiences like these that encouraged me to get my BS in Computer Engineering. At the time, it was the only degree field that enabled you to get both HW and SW exposure so that you could successfully interface machines together.

So I encourage anyone new to MCU devices to get the training in both as you will find the rest of your life trying to resolve where the problem really is caused and wheather you can fix it with a few compontents or some software changes.

As the Chinese say "May you live in interesting times!" I believe this was a curse, but then I don't speak Chinese. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ccd13014-3025-4b89-856c-d68ddabf76bb/contentimage_5F00_938.png:16:16]

So I am glad that they are training people to appreciate the interface issues. With devices like the PSOC, the lines between HW and SW are getting even more blurred. Or is it just my vision? Oh well.

Good Post,

DAB