Good luck Churchy. Sounds right up your street, all bits and bytes, peeking and poking. Have a nice nybble.
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Is C a 'good' programming language?
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Originally posted by Trev16v View PostInteresting thread. Embedded systems programming has been mentioned a few times and I'll chime in and agree that C definitely has its place in this field. My background is electronics hardware and from that I moved into using assembler and C for PICs and ARM processors. I suppose on limited embedded platforms like these, "assembler with tits on" is exactly what you want from a programming language, and nothing more! I'm used to the concept of managing memory resources yourself and selecting the libraries to match the processor variant and peripherals you're using. I enjoy using C, and don't believe that lack of OOP features make it 'bad'.
I've never done embedded stuff myself, but I've worked with people that do (I've done a couple of gigs writing PC software that connects to and controls hardware running embedded software). I wouldn't say they're lesser programmers, but perhaps they're "differently abled", and they don't get "software engineering". In one case I found out that the embedded team didn't use source control. They had vaguely heard of source control, but didn't see the point because it didn't acheive anything that you couldn't do with zip and emailing each other changes.Will work inside IR35. Or for food.Comment
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Originally posted by VectraMan View PostThat does suggest that it's the sort of people that do it that lead to C, i.e. coming from electronics and learning to do a bit of coding.
I've never done embedded stuff myself, but I've worked with people that do (I've done a couple of gigs writing PC software that connects to and controls hardware running embedded software). I wouldn't say they're lesser programmers, but perhaps they're "differently abled", and they don't get "software engineering". In one case I found out that the embedded team didn't use source control. They had vaguely heard of source control, but didn't see the point because it didn't acheive anything that you couldn't do with zip and emailing each other changes.
Originally posted by DimPrawn View PostGood luck Churchy. Sounds right up your street, all bits and bytes, peeking and poking. Have a nice nybble.
Last edited by Churchill; 26 August 2009, 09:08.Comment
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Originally posted by zeitghostThat works for me... it used to be frisbynet...
And it pays to remove the listing files from the zip before sending stuff from Norway over a 14.4k dialup line in 1996...Comment
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Originally posted by zeitghostOr rs232net to connect all those disparate mini, micro & bluebox mdsII systems together...
It seemed moderately complex at the time.
Along with reading 8" floppy diskettes in an interesting variety of formats...
Dear dead days really beyond recall...My all-time favourite Dilbert cartoon, this is: BTW, a Dumpster is a brand of skip, I think.Comment
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Originally posted by Churchill View PostGet the address of the display buffer/port address of the display hardware and write the data there yourself.Originally posted by MaryPoppinsI'd still not breastfeed a naziOriginally posted by vetranUrine is quite nourishingComment
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Originally posted by zeitghostHowever, including printf is usually fatal, immediately using all the code space for the library support...Last edited by Sysman; 26 August 2009, 13:49.Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away.Comment
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Originally posted by d000hg View PostNot that difficult in a text-mode display. No idea about embedded devices but back in my days of MS-Dos coding in C, I remember Bios functionality to interact with files, display, etc. Didn't you fire interrupts to access this functionality? Been a while...
First place I worked had a DOS based multimedia system that did direct access to the screen buffer, but for SVGA modes you had to page it into a 64K window, and the paging method was different for different graphics cards. You can still do the same in Windows with DirectX, although Aero has spasms when you do. Using a text mode display and having the system form the characters for you is cheating.Will work inside IR35. Or for food.Comment
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Originally posted by VectraMan View PostLoad ax with a command code and issue an interrupt 21h? Was that DOS? I forget.
First place I worked had a DOS based multimedia system that did direct access to the screen buffer, but for SVGA modes you had to page it into a 64K window, and the paging method was different for different graphics cards. You can still do the same in Windows with DirectX, although Aero has spasms when you do. Using a text mode display and having the system form the characters for you is cheating.
I remember when I first learned how to use VESA to access the whole video buffer as a linear memory region... it was amazing!Originally posted by MaryPoppinsI'd still not breastfeed a naziOriginally posted by vetranUrine is quite nourishingComment
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Originally posted by d000hg View PostI remember all that stuff, great fun. The hard part was accessing 16-color modes where you had to pick which color 'plane' you wanted to access on top of everything else.!
I had the book by the bloke who wrote Doom, that went into insane detail in how to squeeze every possible bit of performance out of VGA and the x86, and I remember that talking about planes. Chock full of assember. I wish I still had it - I guess it was the company's.
Whilst we're doing memory lane (and slightly on topic), I used to do a lot of assembler for the simple reason that in 16-bit Windows in C you could only access 64K blocks of contiguous memory (unless you used huge pointers which had an unacceptable overhead), whereas assembler let you use a 32-bit offset. Assembler really was better than C in that respect.Will work inside IR35. Or for food.Comment
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