Embedded Muse 112 Copyright 2005 TGG March 21, 2005


You may redistribute this newsletter for noncommercial purposes. For commercial use contact jack@ganssle.com.

EDITOR: Jack Ganssle, jack@ganssle.com

CONTENTS:
- Editor’s Notes
- Computer Magazines
- Debouncing
- Jobs!
- Joke for the Week
- About The Embedded Muse

Editor’s Notes


Want to increase your team’s productivity? Reduce bugs? Meet deadlines? Take my one day Better Firmware Faster seminar. You’ll learn how to estimate a schedule accurately, thwart schedule-killing bugs, manage reuse, build predictable real-time code, better ways to deal with uniquely embedded problems like reentrancy, heaps, stacks and hardware drivers, and much, much more.

I’m presenting this:
- Austin, TX on April 18
- Baltimore, MD on April 20

Want to be your company’s embedded guru? Join us! There’s more info at https://www.ganssle.com/classes.htm, including cheap flights to these cities from around the USA.

If your outfit has a dozen or more engineers who can benefit from this training I can present the seminar on-site.


The Embedded Systems Programming folks asked for articles appropriate for the upcoming April Fools’ Day. I couldn’t resist; see: http://embedded.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=159901030 .


Computer Magazines


A reader asked me what magazines I recommend for someone doing firmware work. It’s a good but loaded question; if you subscribe to all the publications I do you’ll never get any work done!

This field moves awfully fast… but there are a surprising number of pockets where things never change at all. I see plenty of developers stuck in some sort of time warp, creating firmware the same way they did years ago. It’s crucial that we programmers and engineers stay connected with the latest developments in the field.

Equally important is to keep abreast of commercial products. Tools change; new products come out that can accelerate development tremendously.

Here’s my software-related reading list:

Circuit Cellar Ink – Though more or less an electronics hobbyist magazine, and though it really doesn’t have much of a software focus, each issue includes interesting projects with code. I enjoy Tom Cantrell’s column which often describes new embedded processors and technology, and find the projects interesting. See http://www.circuitcellar.com .

Communications of the ACM – As professionals we’re supposed to act like professionals, which includes belonging to our professional organization. Communications of the ACM is the Association of Computer Machinery’s primary organ. Though many or even most of the articles aren’t relevant to a firmware person’s needs, there’s enough of interest to warrant reading it. The columns are interesting and entertaining. The ACM, like the IEEE, is expensive to join, and the publications can be frustratingly devoid of practical content. But for me, at least, the benefit outweighs the price. See http://acm.org .

Crosstalk – Though not well known in the embedded space, Crosstalk is an excellent publication aimed at developers building big systems. If you’re working with the CMM, TSP, or PSP this is a must-read. Free. See http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/about.html) .

Dr Dobb's Journal – There’s one or two columns a month about embedded systems, including the always interesting ruminations of Ed Nisley. The ads are useful. Most of the other articles are nearly orthogonal to the needs of embedded systems (C#, web pages, etc). See http://ddj.com/ .

EDN – EDN is truly a hardware-centric magazine aimed at electronics engineers, but the Design Ideas section often contains firmware algorithms. If you’re an EE like me then the magazine is a must-read. Firmware lives at the intersection of hardware and software, so firmware developers should have some knowledge of chips and circuits. Free. See http://edn.com .

Embedded Systems Programming – The one magazine that really caters to firmware developers. Every issue has at least one article I want to read. The ads are highly-targeted at us as well. Free. See http://embedded.com . (Note: an awful lot of people complain that they’re subscription requests are ignored. I’ve repeatedly beaten the magazine people up about this, but nothing seems to change. You can read it on-line at http://embedded.com ).

IEEE Computer – A monthly publication that’s interesting though usually not tremendously useful to the practicing engineer. I enjoy the columnists’ perspective and one or two articles a month. See www.computer.org .

IEEE Micro – This IEEE publication is targeted at the microprocessor industry. To my frustration I rarely find much of interest in the magazine but stay subscribed in the hope that will change. See http://www.computer.org/micro .

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering – I really, really want to get something useful from this magazine so at least read the titles every issue. No doubt the academics find much of interest but I suspect few engineers would benefit much. See http://www.computer.org/tse .

MAKE – A new O’Reilly publication. This is a hobbyist’s dream magazine, with articles about building all sorts of cool projects. The current issue even has an article about time management for geeks. I’ve only just subscribed so can’t rate it yet, but do find the $35/yr price scandalously high for a 4 issue publication. See http://make.oreilly.com .

Queue – Another ACM publication. If you’re an ACM member this is free and worthwhile; I wouldn’t join just for Queue, though. Occasional article of interest, but fun columns. See http://www.acmqueue.org .

SD Times – Sort of an EE Times for software people, SD Times is aimed mostly at IT-type developers. But sometimes there will be an embedded article. The ads and product reviews are a useful way to keep up with tools. Free. See http://sdtimes.com .

Software Development Magazine - Nothing at all about embedded, but lots about software engineering. This is the magazine to get to stay up with the Agile community. Free. See http://www.sdmagazine.com .

Software Test and Performance – This new magazine by the SD Times people has yet to prove itself. I’m very interested in the testing issue, and hope the publication blossoms. Free. See http://www.stpmag.com .


It’s pretty much impossible to actually *read* all of these each month. I browse through them all, ripping out occasional articles and ads of interest and toss those into a pile for airplane reading.

What software-related publications do you read?


Debouncing


The code I described in https://www.ganssle.com/debouncing.htm debounces only one edge of the switch’s closure, to be very responsive to the user. But Barrett Davis has another take on this, and sent in some code that will debounce both edges. It’s very straightforward and includes a test harness:


// debounce.cpp

// Copyright (c) 2005 Barrett Davis, released into the public domain.


#include
#include "stdafx.h"

#define MAX_CHECKS 5

unsigned char RawKeyPressed( void );


// debounce() data:


const int MAX_DEBOUNCE_INDEX = MAX_CHECKS;
unsigned char state[ MAX_DEBOUNCE_INDEX ]; // Debounce switch array
unsigned char debounce_state; // Debounced state.
unsigned char debounce_index; // Index into the array.

void debounce( void )

{


// Debounce the switch array, using a modification of Jack Ganssle's

// DebounceSwitch3() algorithm found at ww.ganssle.com/debouncing.pdf


if( debounce_index >= MAX_DEBOUNCE_INDEX ) {
debounce_index = 0; // Keep the index within bounds.
}
state[ debounce_index++ ] = RawKeyPressed(); // Read the raw key
unsigned char on = 0xFF; // 1=switch closure, 0=don't care.
unsigned char off = 0x00; // 0=switch open, 1=don't care.
for( int ii = 0; ii < MAX_DEBOUNCE_INDEX; ii++ ) {
on &= state[ ii ]; // Accumulate constant 1s.
off |= state[ ii ]; // Accumulate constant 0s.
}
debounce_state |= on; // Force 1s on in result.
debounce_state &= off; // Force 0s off in result.
return;
}

const int MAX_KEY = 60;
int key_index = 0;

unsigned char RawKeyPressed( void )

{


// Return a sample key value for testing.


static const unsigned char key[ MAX_KEY ] = { 0,0,1,1,0,1,0,0,1,0,
1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,
1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,1,0,
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,8,0,0,
0,1,0,0,3,0,0,0,5,1,
1,1,1,1,1,1,3,1,1,0};
if( key_index >= MAX_KEY ) key_index = 0;
return key[ key_index ];
}

void init( void )

{


// Initialize our test system.


debounce_state = 0;
for(int i=0; i debounce_index = 0;
return;
}

int main( void )

{


// Unit test to compare switch debouncing techniques.


init();
printf("\nRaw Debounced"); // Column header
for( int ii = 0; ii < MAX_KEY; ii++ ) {
debounce();
printf("\n%i %i",RawKeyPressed() & 0xff, debounce_state & 0xff);
key_index++;
}
return 0;
}


Jobs!


Joke for the Week


Chuck Sommer sent this, sort of depressing, observation: If a programmer spends half his time "DEBUGGING" what do you call how he spends the other half of his time?

"BUGGING"