Started out with the 8052 in college. Graduated to the PIC. Upgraded to the AVRs. Last seen with Xilinx FPGAs before being kidnapped by fullstack web development.
Man do I miss this stuff. Articles like these make me want to get back into it.
Man do I miss this stuff. Articles like these make me want to get back into it.
If you want a taste, go build some stuff in pure x86. You'll pretty quickly get tired of it and will want to build higher order abstractions, and then you're back in software-land.
Doing stuff with hardware expands your creative horizon to do things in the real world, freeing yourself from the confines of the virtual realm. 3D print what you need, make it come alive with MCUs.
Also much of modern software development feels like just plugging lego bricks, but in embedded you actually have to know how stuff works, down to the register level.
But then those were purely hobby projects, maybe it feels very different when doing it for a living.
Now I live in the bay area and am working on a startup. Iteration cycles are much more faster so I can learn quicker and ship quicker. Also, distribution is a lot easier.