ASK YC: Do you know a good book to learn embedded system programming?

4 points·VinzO··4 comments

I learnt programming during my studies, but now I have to do some embedded SW on a PowerPC. This is very specific and there are a lot of things that I never learnt at school or in programming books. How to manage memory, what is a heap, manage the stack, define memory sections, bootloader, RTOS... do you know a good book that cover these kind of things?

View on HN

No matter what you do, teaching yourself all that stuff will take months at least. It's not something you master in a weekend.

The best people in that area probably have a long history with (embedded) programming and started when computers were a lot simpler.

So, this might sounds as really crazy advice, but I think it could help lot: find an Apple ][ on eBay and some old Apple ][ programming books. Then start hacking on some assembly code to understand the things you describe above.

Another option would be to buy some more modern (:-) development boards for CPUs like the PPC or ARM. Some are very well documented and come with tutorials.

The Apple ][ approach is more fun IMO and you will learn a LOT from it :-)

I had a quick look. It seems not so easy to get an apple II. Probably even more difficult to find the programming books. I will check more in details. Probably that a development board for modern CPU will be easier to get.

Jack Gannsle's books: http://www.ganssle.com/book.htm or check Amazon. Also has articles at his site which might interest you.

Also articles at embedded.com

Thanks, I never heard about Jack Gannsle. His books and website looks very interesting. I will have a look at it more in details.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com