How-to Articles

If ever there was a piece of embedded software ripe for reuse it's the memory test. This article shows how to test for the most common memory problems with a set of three efficient, portable, public-domain memory test functions.

Merely adding a protocol stack and networking API to your software doesn't make you TCP/IP ready. You'll also need to assign your product a MAC address.

Any book on TCP/IP will tell you that each network-connected device has a globally unique hardware address. But where, exactly, do these addresses come from? And why is it that the authors of books on TCP/IP never bother to answer this or any other practical implementation question?

Embedded software developers operate in a perfect digital environment but must interact with the imperfect analog real world. To do this it's essential to know how to perform calibration of inputs and sensors.

If your embedded system is on a network, the key question is not will you include TCP/IP but which subset of the Internet Protocol suite will be supported in your product.

Given a particular programming problem, what language should you use to realize the solution? Your choice could very well affect the success or failure of the project. So you'd better choose wisely.

Cyclic Redundancy Codes (CRCs) are among the best checksums available to detect and/or correct errors in communications transmissions. Unfortunately, the modulo-2 arithmetic used to compute CRCs doesn't map easily into software. This article shows how to implement an efficient CRC in C or C++.

Download Barr Group's Free CRC Code in C now.

Checksum algorithms based solely on addition are easy to implement and can be executed efficiently on any microcontroller. However, many common types of transmission errors cannot be detected when such simple checksums are used. This article describes a stronger type of checksum, commonly known as a CRC.

A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is based on division instead of addition. The error detection capabilities of a CRC make it a much stronger checksum and, therefore, often worth the price of additional computational complexity.

Whenever you connect two or more computers together with the intent of exchanging information, you assume that the exchange will take place without errors. But what if some of the data is lost or corrupted in transit? Communication protocols usually attempt to detect such errors automatically. To do that they use checksums.

Download Barr Group's Free CRC Code in C now.

As engineers design more and more products with embedded computer systems that require connections of one sort or another, we've got to pay attention to the ease with which these connections can be made. Short-range wireless protocols offer an attractive alternative to wired connections.

New standards are making the delivery of Web-based and enhanced content alongside television a reality. This article describes the ATVEF enhanced television standard and the requirements for designing ATVEF-compatible receivers.