Embedded programming is the term for the computer programming that lives in and operates the great many computer-controlled devices that surround us in our homes, cars, workplaces and communities. To be clear, all microcontroller programming is embedded programming, but not all embedded programming is microcontroller programming. A little more will be said about this further along. Sometimes the terms will be used interchangeably, but the focus of this tutorial series is always on microcontrollers.

For every desktop or notebook or tablet computer you have, you may have a dozen or more (perhaps a great deal more) microcontrollers quietly doing their embedded duty, and with these devices many people don’t even realize they involve a tiny computer running a program. But there is, and it is, and those programs had to be written, and that’s why the world needs embedded programming. Microcontrollers add intelligence to countless devices and systems, enabling those devices and systems to operate better, faster, more safely, more efficiently, more conveniently, more usefully, and in many cases allowing the very existence of devices and systems that could not be built otherwise. Spend some time looking around you and trying to recognize where μCs are working, and you will begin to get a sense of how ubiquitous they have become since their invention some 40+ years ago.

On top of all that, many people, myself included, find μC programming a particularly fascinating and rewarding branch of the programming tree, and we just like to program embedded systems.　In ways very different from most desktop or mainframe programming, embedded programs make stuff do stuff, and to an embedded programmer, stuff doing stuff is endlessly cool.

What Is An Embedded System?

There’s no perfect answer to that question, since every answer will have some exceptions. However, for our purposes let us declare that an embedded system is one that uses one or more microcomputers (that is, small to very, very small computers), running custom dedicated programs and connected to specialized hardware, to perform a dedicated set of functions. This can be contrasted with a general-purpose computer such as the familiar desktop or notebook, which are not designed to run only one dedicated program with one specialized set of hardware. It’s not a perfect definition, but it’s a start.　

Some examples of embedded systems are:

·         Alarm / security system

·         Automobile cruise control

·         Heating / air conditioning thermostat

·         Microwave oven

·         Anti-skid braking controller

·         Traffic light controller

·         Vending machine

·         Gas pump

·         Handheld Sudoku game

·         Irrigation system controller

·         Singing wall fish (or this gift season’s equivalent)

·         Multicopter

·         Oscilloscope

·         Mars Rover

For the most part I have listed example embedded applications on the less-complex end of the spectrum, since this is after all a beginning tutorial. By the end of this tutorial series you should have a good general idea how most of these applications would be programmed, and in rough terms what kinds of I/O, timing, interrupt and communications hardware and functionality they would require.　

There are a few things worth noticing about the above list. While many embedded systems use fairly traditional user input-output devices (keypads, displays), many others do not. Also, many embedded systems interact directly with human beings, but others do not (and we’re stil