Author: Eric McRae

  • Tracking Down Killer Bugs Published in the April 2002 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal, this article describes the lengths one must occasionally go to to solve a problem that eludes normal techniques for debugging.

  • Configuring Changeable Embedded Systems was published in the December 1998 issue of Embedded Systems Programming. It described the Energy Control System designed for the Tera MTA supercomputer. One of the major design constraints was to produce a system with very low software maintenance cost for highly configurable hardware.

  • Benchmarking Real-Time Operating Systems was published in the May 1996 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. It proposes a suite of benchmarks for evaluation of embedded RTOS. Initiated by a grueling RTOS selection process for a client, the suite represents a substantial effort in study of existing benchmarks and development of an alternative. The resulting measures are hardware independent and are more intuitive and useful than those produced by previous benchmarks.

  • Programming the TPU was the "cover story" article for the March 1995 issue of Embedded Systems Programming. It provides a broad view of Motorola's TPU. The article describes the TPU and the standard functions provided by Motorola. The process for developing custom functions is also described and three examples of custom TPU programming are given. The magazine's online archive only extends back to January, 1995 so this article is not available other than as a reprint.

  • Timing for the 68332 was published in the January 1995 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. The article describes specific setups for connecting Dallas DS1202 and DS2404 timekeeping chips to a MC68332. The article reveals some interesting information about the Dallas devices and it describes (source code provided) an unusual method for manipulating the SPI clock line.

  • Avoiding Microprocessor Pile-Ups was published in the October 1993 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. The article describes the wheelchair controller design that was the Grand Prize Winner in Motorola's 68HC16 Application Design Contest. The controller accepts speech and muscle motion input and controls the drive motors and audio/visual/speech output. The design includes dynamic motor control algorithms and ultrasonic collision detection. The article also describes the dispatch loop used in the design to evenly distribute real time processing tasks. The design topped over 500 other entries to receive the grand prize for the contest.

  • Book Reviews published in the November 1996 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal in the "Programmer's Bookshelf" department. Two computer related books are reviewed in the article. One in particular is a good resource for anyone contemplating DSP in embedded systems. C Algorithms for Real-Time DSP by Paul M. Embree contains a lot of useful information.