Author Archives: Erich Styger

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About Erich Styger

Embedded is my passion....

VS Code: Telemetry-free VSCodium

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“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch

And this applies to VS Code and many of its extensions. You agree to the licensing conditions, and you pay with your data.

VS Code source code is MIT licensed, but the binaries you can download and install have telemetry built in: you are giving Microsoft your usage data in return for using VS Code.

If you are concerned about this, and looking for free and libre open source binaries of VS Code, then have a look at MIT-Licensed VSCodium.

https://vscodium.com
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VS Code: MCUXpresso Extension

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In essence, VS Code is only a text editor, although with very nice features. An editor which can be enhanced with so called extensions. With the right set of extensions, VS Code can be specialized for web development, or even LaTeX documenting. Or as in the case of this article series, for embedded development.

Installed VS Code Extensions
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VS Code: Getting Started, literally

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This is another article in my series about Visual Studio Code. After having it installed (see VS Code: IDE Installation), this one is about starting the IDE

I can start the IDE from the shortcut (if created during the installation) or by typing code in console/command prompt shell (e.g. Windows PowerShell). To be able to use the code command requires VS Code to be present in the PATH.

Starting VS Code
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MCUXpresso IDE 11.8.0

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Don’t worry: despite all the things going on with VS Code, Eclipse is here to stay probably for many more years. The Eclipse foundation is pumping out releases, and so does NXP with their latest MCUXpresso IDE 11.8.0. Lets have a look…

MCUXpresso IDE 11.8.0
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VS Code: Uninstall completely

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Nothing has to last forever, and VS Code might not be the right thing for everyone. VS Code can go overboard with all the extensions and things it had proposed to install. Up to a point that one needs to get re-started again. Or because you tasted VS Code, but you did not like it.

That’s OK, you can uninstall it, after you have installed it (see VS Code: IDE Installation). The catch is: the uninstall does not a full removal, as settings and extensions do not get removed.

This article shows how to fully uninstall VS Code.

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RS-485 with NXP LPC55S69

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I’m using the RS-485 field bus in many of my projects: it is very reliable and robust, and easy to implement. And with ModBus there is standardized protocol used in building automation or industrial control applications. For example I’m using the protocol to communicate between battery systems and an EV Charger.

NXP LPC55S69-EVK with RS-485

In this article I show you with an example, how the NXP LPC55S69 can be used with RS-485.

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Consolidating with VS Code

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It is August 1st, and Switzerland is celebrating its National Holiday. Rather cold and rainy, so this gets me some time to catch up on things. The preparation for the coming university semester in September is in full swing, and I have the honor to take over building up a new Master of Science in Engineering education module. In the existing courses I teach on the topic of embedded systems, I do use devices and MCUs from vendors like Broadcom, NXP, STM, Nordic, Raspberry Pi and Espressif. This not only means different SDKs, but different IDEs with different debug probes.

Just a subset of different hardware kits used in different labs

Eclipse has been the common factor in the mix with all these, and with all the pros and cons, it worked very well. With NXP having released support for Visual Studio Code, adding an announcement, and other vendors going into the same direction, I took the decision that I want to migrate my lab and lecture infrastructure to VS Code.

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Using Legacy Devices with LinkServer

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The Freescale K20DX128 MCU was one of the first ARM Cortex-M devices of that company (now NXP) back in 2012, and the FRDM-K20D50M board was the first ‘FRDM‘ board of a long and successful series of boards, starting back in 2013. I still have the K20 present in many of my designs. The challenge with ‘early’ or ‘legacy’ devices is that after a while, they are ‘not recommended’ any more, and it is hard to get support for them. So for example in newer tooling and software from NXP, there is no support for the K20.

MCU-Link (NXP, left) debugging FRDM-K20 (Freescale, right) board

So if you still have the K20 around, and need some newer tooling, then I have good news for you: It is possible to add that good-old-Kinetis to the list of supported LinkServer devices, so you are not stuck and can use newer debugging solutions for the K20.

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