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Issue #210 January 2008
Special Feature: 20th Anniversary Retrospective
That Was Then, This Is Now
by Ed Nisley
Start | Microcontrollers | Analog | Wetware | Contact Release | Sources & PDF
WETWARE
A single person can figure out the code for a simple 8051- or PICmicro-class microcontroller project, if only because even the largest of those parts doesn’t contain much code. In the 1980s you could also write a decent PC program using little more than a compiler and relatively thin hardware reference manuals.
That’s still true today for microcontrollers, because you can still buy, program, and use those classic chips for small projects. Even better, free program development software and inexpensive device programming hardware welcome anyone into the game.
In contrast, PC-class programming has become baroque and difficult to learn. Contemporary operating systems, whether Windows, Mac, or Linux, prohibit direct hardware access by userland programs, a restriction that makes sense for most applications. Writing any nontrivial program now requires multiple support layers for user interfaces, communication, and storage, each with different, interacting rules and APIs. To a large extent, a novice programmer has no idea how, when, or where the software and hardware interact.
On the plus side, the advent of free and open-source software enables you to discover exactly what’s going on inside the program, then modify it to suit yourself. Most folks never venture into the details, but I’m certain that the next generation of engineers and programmers will use that knowledge to build much better systems than we ever imagined.
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