Tag Archives: Thoughts

DIY Free Toolchain for Kinetis: Part 1 – GNU ARM Build Tools

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This is the first part of a multi-part tutorial on setting up a free and functional GNU gcc + Eclipse + debugger environment for use with the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board.

List of Tutorials

In this first part, I’m showing how to install the GNU ARM tool chain to build a ‘blinking LED’ application for the FRDM-KL25Z. With 100% free tools 😉

Blinking Red RGB LED made with free tools

Blinking Red RGB LED made with free tools

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Hacking the Heating System for Cooling – Geothermal Drilling with extra Benefits

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Summer finally has arrived in Switzerland. Yes, I live in a moderate climate zone, but if the outside temperature goes above 28-30° Celsius as these days, then sleeping at night is not that comfortable as it should be in my view. Luckily, I’m in a good constructed house with good insulation, so it takes a few days until it heats up. But I love to keep the temperature below 25° Celsius, especially at night. I do have a heating system which combines geothermal and solar heating. The question is: how can I use it for cooling during hot summer days? The solution: some extra plumbing, a Freescale Tower system and the Freescale FRDM-KL25Z board 🙂

FRDM-KL25Z with Arduino Data Logger Shield

FRDM-KL25Z with Arduino Data Logger Shield controlling Heating/Cooling System

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Adding/Removing Floating Point Format for S08 Projects

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Usually I do *not* use floating point numbers in my projects. For this, I select ‘None’ during the project creation in CodeWarrior for MCU:

No Floating Point Selected

No Floating Point Selected

But what if I need to change my mind later? How to change such a ‘no-floating-point-needed’ project to one with floating point format support?

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Review of CodeWarrior for MCU10.4

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Freescale has released this week an updated version of CodeWarrior: version 10.4. I’m usually not switching a tools version in the middle of a university semester. Unless I see a real benefit, and the risk is low. Well, I have used it now for a few days, and I have decided to move my projects from 10.3 to 10.4. Why? Read on…

CW for MCU10.4

CW for MCU10.4

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McuOnEclipse goes Git

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When I have asked by a student last year if I’m uing Git, I said “Git what?”. Yep, a shame I did not know what Git was a this time. But it is never to late to learn new things.

I was coming from CVS, moved to the successor of it (SVN) and was happy with it. Especially with having a local SVN server and repository, that was (and still is) a great thing. But to truely collaborate with a worldwide community, it is time to use something different: Git.

GitHub Bootcamp: 4 simple steps to git

GitHub Bootcamp: 4 simple steps to git

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An Idea for the New Year, and Asking for Your Opinion

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The year 2012 is coming to an end, and luckily the end of the world is postponed :-). So time to make plans for the year 2013! And here is one I would like to ask your opinion about it: A public repository for Processor Expert components.

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Multitasking, or not?

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This post by patoid just hit my (multitasking?) mind. It is about multitasking, and NO, not about RTOS scheduler and multitasking. Things are related, but not that much.

The problem is: how to be productive in today’s world? The world is running in parallel: many things happen at the same time. And I’m in the middle of it: phone calls, emails, meetings, somebody stepping into the room, discussions, multiple roles and jobs, piles and queues of things to, hard deadline for deliverables, changing priorities and a lot of things at the same (or no) priority, and interruptions on top of it. You name it.

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