Computer Science Lounge - [Too Many Idea Men Edition]

no matter where you go, know that if you can write, you can always break straight into the media and Tea bag journo/media majors on niche topics.

Ironically a CS degree makes you far more employable in the biz than the ones people get to enter it.

I like programming too much though to go into those fields but I do see your point. An article over something has more credibility when it was written by a computer scientists rather than like a media journalist.

it's why they pay me the big bucks.

are you a CS major journalist?

yes.

Chemistry with a minor in CS, but it applies to any science.

lol, I think if I wanted to write I would write programming tutorial books or something like that.

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queue the O'Reilly tutorial book memes:

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I was looking up the embedded systems course here at my university and it appears no EE stuff required so embedded systems is definitely I thing I could teach myself.

EE is only for design on that front. If you just want to stick an MCU on something, there's fucking youtube tutorials

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Its strange how I am worrying about this, I have an offer for a internship that is looking to get full timers from their interns and I got an offer for a coop in 2018. All I need to do is sit on my ass and I could get 70k salary shortly after graduation.

well there you go.

And like I said, even if you're an incompetent computer scientist, just do journalism. you make about as much after a year or so.

Unfortunately no. When I say custom designs I mean custom circuits using a MCU and other ICs to do a specific task.

It is my understanding that you first design your circuits using off-the-shelf MCUs and ICs to do your task. When you need higher performance you move the design over to a the FPGA solution. Then finally when you need even more performance you switch over to an ASIC. An ASIC is essentially designing your own processor. They are custom ICs, manufactured on wafers, to do your task.

If you want to get into designing custom processors you should look into FPGAs, VHDL, and Verilog. This will be your cheapest option to start learning how to design custom processors. ASICs have huge upfront NRE fees starting around $500,000.

For cheap FPGA started boards check out the Mojo FPGA Development Board and the DE0-Nano - Altera Cyclone IV FPGA starter board (www.adafruit.com).

I have actually used this before in a digital logic course before. I have also taken an processor architecture class, C and C++ course. I feel I have most of the pieces for embedded systems but just need to put them together to dip my toes into the field.

So how complicated is it to take a off the shelf MCU and sodder it onto a board? How do you take a set of compiler binaries and put them on the chip?

The task itself is not difficult after some practice and the proper tools. First off you would read through the MCU's datasheet for details on pin assignment and recommended circuit design. Once you have the circuit laid out in a CAD package, you generate GERBER files to have the board made. You can get boards for pretty cheap for a small run from https://oshpark.com/ . You then have a few options on how you want to have the parts placed on the board. You can pay someone to place them. You can hand solder them with a soldering iron. You can apply solder paste and bake the parts on (electric griddle, toaster oven, a real reflow oven).

Once you have an assembled board you will need a programmer tool to load software onto the MCU. For example, if you have a Microchip PIC MCU you could use a PicKit or an ICD 3 to program the chip. Of course you will need to have the ICSP pins of the MCU exposed via some kind of header connector or a custom pogo board that the programmer can connect to. The programmer is then used to clear the memory of the MCU and copy over the compiled binary.

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I will definitely take a look at something like this over the summer. Thanks for the advice on where to start.

Marky would be offended.

blocked on FB for hate speech

C is everywhere .. :/

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Would your recommend any specific CAD program to design the board?

I've noticed that as soon as you get to a certain level of technology, C is ridiculously dominant. To the point it seems its a pretty good idea to have a good grasp of it. But I've noticed that the C "community" if there is even one seems pretty hostile. Anyone seem to notice the same? Few (good) resources, few communities, few ongoing things beyond current projects with proficient C programmers.

Was looking into it recently when i was looking at some GNOME stuff and realizing 90% of it is C, then realizing basically anything below the GUI is almost all C.

I've noticed this as well. I always thought it was some sort of elitism type thing. The hostility seems somewhat similar to some of the linux communities which make new folks hesitant to test the waters.