"How-to" Technical Articles

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Products destined for use in multiple countries often require user interfaces that support several human languages. Sloppy string management in your programs could result in unintelligible babble.

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To keep a watchdog timer from resetting your system, you've got to kick it regularly. But that's not all there is to watchdog science. We will examine the use and testing of a watchdog, as well as the integration of a watchdog into a multitasking environment.

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Major semiconductor manufacturers are starting to sell a new type of integrated circuit, the network processor. Network processors are programmable chips like general purpose microprocessors, but are optimized for the packet processing required in network devices. But what are they good for and how do they work?

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If you are considering using software developed by others, such as Linux, within your embedded system, you'll likely need an intellectual property lawyer to read the license agreements such as GPL. Here's a brief glossary of the licensing terminology that's enough to get you started.

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The Internet Protocol (IP) is the glue that holds an internet together. Here's a compact implementation of the IP layer for embedded C programmers.

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The address resolution protocol provides a necessary bridge between physical and logical addresses on a TCP/IP network.

Every system on a TCP/IP network has two addresses, one physical and one logical. The address resolution protocol (ARP) provides a necessary bridge between these two addresses.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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If your embedded system is on a network, the key question is: what subset of TCP/IP will you include in your product?