Most of my life, programming and embedded microcontrollers has been a passion of mine. Over the course of my career I have gained experienced on many different architectures including some that are very specialized for specific applications. Even with current diverse market of specialized devices, I continue to find the general-purpose microcontroller market the most interesting. I believe this stems from how I first fell in love with computing. It can be traced back to the 7th grade when we were learning “Computer Literacy” with the Apple IIe computer. During the course, students learned how to code programs in the BASIC language. Projects spanned everything from simple graphics, printing and games. Simultaneous to that experience, I learned that my other 7th grade passion, playing the Nintendo™, was connected to the activities in computer literacy. Through a popular gaming magazine, I discovered that the chip that powered the Nintendo was the device that powered the computers at school, the venerable “6502”. That was the real moment of epiphany. If a CPU could be both a gaming system and a word processor, it could really *do anything* I wanted. It wasn’t long before I was digging into the intricate details of the 6502 to power my creations. The 6502 was my 1st general purpose CPU.
Read more...