The whole purpose of using an Arduino UNO form-factor is to support Arduino shields – yet I have never seen an Arduino shield on the desk of a professional engineer or advanced hobbyist. But a lot of vendors build boards that are cosmetically similar to Arduino UNO dev boards, but have none of the software support necessary to use them with Arduino libraries or the Wiring environment in general. Nope. Do they provide libraries for all the Arduino shields that are supported by their MAX boards? The PIC24FJ1024GA610 supports up to a 1024 KB of flash, 32 KB of RAM, and a 32 MHz run speed – though there are dsPIC devices, like the dsPIC33EP512GM604, with up to 140 MHz operating frequency, 512 KB of flash, and 48 KB of RAM. While other manufacturers have J-Link OB debuggers, they’re usually USB 2.0 full speed, not high speed. Renesas RL-78 extends up to the R5F101SLAFB, with 128-pin package, 512 KB of flash, 32 KB of RAM, and a slightly-faster 32 MHz clock speed. GCC’s RL-78 port, however, seems crippled by this issue – no optimization flags I tried were ever able to generate correct SFR accesses; everything always went through normal 16-bit space, issuing a strong performance penalty.

Renesas, while not having RL-78 header documentation, does have a bizarre pop-up PDF viewer thing that displays the relevant reference manual section when you hover-over a variable. There’s also runtime variable watch and instruction tracing, but that’s only supported by the really pricy RealICE debugger. There’s a hover-over break-down of the register into its individual bits, but these use the same short-form datasheet names, don’t provide descriptions, and don’t contain enumeration values for multi-bit fields (or any explanation at all). The characters are printed through the debugging interface, so there’s no need to configure a UART. Are you the type that seeks out the deserted beaches that are tucked away from the more touristy areas? I got Richard Stallman to sign mine while it was running GNU/Linux, but when I bought a regular laptop I stopped using it because, well, it is too old, and its keyboard is too tiny to type comfortably with it. NXP used to build fantastic little dev boards – the LPCXpresso “stick” boards – that were the first in the industry to have snap-off (well, cut-off) debuggers.

Those have all but vanished – these days, GCC builds code for several different MCU families, while the industry stand-bys – Keil, IAR, Cosmic, etc – continue to be popular choices for 8-bit MCUs that lack C-friendliness (and thus, GCC support). GCC excels at producing fast math code, supporting recent C standards, and – with link-time-optimization – producing compact code. The Achilles’ heel for GCC on MCUs is actually not GCC itself – but rather the C library – Newlib or Newlib-Nano – that is often linked to the program whenever you need printf() or similar C routines. This device doesn’t have any extension port other than a dock connector for a dock I don’t have, and a 16-bit PCMCIA slot, which you will need for the network card. If you spent the winter couch surfing instead of at the gym, though, the extra fabric and elastic waistband will definitely accentuate your spare tire. Flash reading also plagued the EFM8 Laser Bee, which takes 8 cycles to unconditionally jump when operating at 72 MHz (though, oddly, its 8-cycle toggling performance is better than the 10 cycles it should take, if one trusts the datasheet). When you hit “Generate Code” prepare to wait 10-30 seconds at least – and project rebuilding takes forever, too.

As a plus, the tool can generate project formats that target all popular development ecosystems – and not just their official System Workbench for STM32. Microchip produces microcontrollers of three basic designs: an 8-bit, a 16-bit, and a 32-bit. The XC8, XC16, and XC32 are the current compilers in their collection that target each of these, respective. Leather is a classic upholstery choice for this style; woven fabrics with Native American and other timeless motifs are handsome, too. There are a few other (albeit odd) choices out there: pure focus Freescale’s legacy ColdFire microcontrollers include the MCF5223X, which has an integrated Ethernet PHY. Stand a few fresh flowers in a plain water glass about a third as tall as the flowers. This means you can trust that your swimwear will withstand the rigors of daily use in chlorine-filled pools or open water swims. Not having searchable notes was almost a deal-breaker for me, and I still have hope that this behavior will be implemented in the future as an update. Here, these auto variables – which should be unique to the function’s execution – will be at the same address, thus causing possible corruption. Even though NetBeans has a lot of the same features, the UI is sparsely populated with the bare minimum of buttons you need to get your job done.