Comments on: About the Book

By: Doug McNutt

Doug McNutt — Mon, 16 May 2016 00:32:25 +0000

My first compiled language was Fortran with no dates after the name. My son now wants to include a microprocessor in some airborne camera pointing and he’s all in favor of a Raspberry Pi. For a bit more than a year I have been trying to find out how to program it. Yes it will run Linux, Python, and perl, but I need to use the extra little goodies that Broadcomm put in. So far all I have seen is guess work by some other folks who finally figured out a way to get pulse width modulation to work. I made folks mad when I refused to work that way and insisted on at least a listing of assembly commands for the parts. That’s proprietary information is the answer.

With that as a background I was absolutely pleased to see a list of commands in your book which the lady brought home from the library. My order for a personal copy has been sent off. I’ll have a real Beagle soon and I just might be able to make a contribution. Thank you for doing it right, including the discussion of timing without interrupts. It will be fun going to my pre-fortran days and get back to an assembler and a soldering iron.

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 14:17:37 +0000

In reply to Andrew Bushnell.

Hi Andy, No book planned on the MSP432 — I’m involved in a different project at the moment that is consuming all of my time… Kind regards, Derek.

By: Andrew Bushnell

Andrew Bushnell — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 00:30:39 +0000

Are you going to write a book on the MSP432? How about some more videos?

Andy

By: Derek

Derek — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 21:31:29 +0000

In reply to Tomm. Thanks Tomm, Derek.

By: Tomm

Tomm — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 23:11:19 +0000

Derek,

Thanks for a really grand treatment of the BBB in your book and videos. I gave both a shout-out on my company web site today.

Tomm

By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 23:21:41 +0000

In reply to ben.

Hi Ben, well done — it’s always good to keep learning new things! It is possible to use the GNU toolchains from within Windows with MingGW but I have found it to be extremely painful, particularly if you with to use 3rd party libraries. I think that the best way to go is to install an Oracle VirtualBox image and do all your Linux-based development within that. The nice thing about using a VM is that you can back it up and revert to an earlier version if you make a bad mistake — great when you are learning. For IoT applications, you can get a good start with the TCP communication work in the later chapters. There is everything there that you need to get started with TCP client/server applications (UDP can come later). Having the VM also means that you can build a multi-tier client server application all on the same machine and bring wireshark into the picture! Good luck with your studies! Derek.

By: ben

ben — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 00:19:14 +0000

I finally took the plunge and bought a bbb and the book! It was my new year’s resolution to start learning this, so I’m just a few months behind 😉

Coming from a windows application programming side, never having touched linux, let alone building linux for an embedded device, anyone know if visualgdb or wingdb is commonly used (either in the book or communiity) ? It’d be nice to use the M$ Studio IDE for developing/debugging, at least until I’m familiar with gnu toolchains, etc.

My main learning objectives are working with linux embedded system and network programming… specifically, I’m interested in UDP programming, as I understand it is the common way IoT devices communicate. I assume a dedicated book on TCP/IP is needed to understand networking, any recommendations or videos that would be a good start? I saw a book for ‘WireShark’ but it seems geared for advanced readers.

Thanks!

By: Derek

Derek — Sat, 23 May 2015 15:58:17 +0000

In reply to Citius. Thanks! Derek.

By: Citius

Citius — Sat, 23 May 2015 13:41:58 +0000

This book along with the companion website are incredible. I have read the book from cover to cover and now carry it with me everywhere in my backpack as an invaluable resource to refer back to. I recommend it to anyone I meet who is interested in BBB. There is no other way to so thoroughly learn BeagleBone. From what you learn in this great book and the companion site resources a, there is very little you cannot do with this BBB platform. I strongly believe a dedicated person could make a living developing solutions using simply their mind, and the powerful BeagleBone Black and this book (and website) as a guide.

By: Elliott Jeyaseelan

Elliott Jeyaseelan — Mon, 18 May 2015 18:01:18 +0000

Derek, this book is simply fantastic. All that info in one place, this is a worth while investment for anyone getting into this space. I have been playing with pics, motorola controllers, stm’s etc and have several dozen books on this subject matter, this one is pretty incredible with indepth technical detail and how-to’s for beginners and advanced alike. the accompanying website with updated info is superb with new content, code and articles etc saved me hundreds of hours of googling, a lot of effort has gone into this book, thanks to everyones contributions, especially to Derek for taking the time to write this comprehensive treasure of a book! This is THE book to own if anyone is interested in jumping into IoT space, microcontrollers, hands on solution development using reasonably yet powerful modern soc type processors, just buy this book asap, you wont regret it. Looking forward to more from you. -Elliott, Ontario, Canada