Collaborate Disseminate
Pity the poor TTL computer aficionado. It’s an obsession, really — using discrete logic chips to scratch-build a computer that would probably compare unfavorably to an 80s era 8-bit machine in terms of performance. And yet they still forge ahead with their breadboards full of chips and tangles of wire. …read more
Continue reading Discrete-Logic UART Keeps 8-Bit TTL Computer Connected
[Sandro Magi] noted that the async/await idiom has become more prevalent in programming recently. According to him, he first encountered it in C# but has found examples of it in JavaScript and Rust, too. The idea is simple: allow a function to return but come back later to complete something …read more
I know you’ve heard of both synchronous and asynchronous communications. But do you really know the differences between the two?
Serial communication was used long before computers existed. A predecessor is the telegraph system using Morse Code, one of the first digital modes of communication. Another predecessor is the teletype, which set standards that are still used today in your Arduino or Raspberry Pi.
All you need is two wires for serial communications, which makes it simple and relatively robust. One wire is ground and the other the signal. By interrupting the power with predefined patterns, information can be transferred …read more
It’s the easiest thing in the world — simple, straightforward serial data. It’s the fallback communication protocol for nearly every embedded system out there, and so it’s one that you really want to work when the chips are down. And yet! When you need it most, you may discover that even asynchronous serial can cost you a few hours of debugging time and add a few gray hairs to your scalp.
In this article, I’m going to cover most (all?) of the things that can go wrong with asynchronous serial protocols, and how to diagnose and debug this most useful …read more
Continue reading What Could Go Wrong: Asynchronous Serial Edition
