What we've been reading in May (2024)

Here are the articles, videos, and tools that we’ve been excited about this May.

What have you been reading? Share in the comments or on the Interrupt Slack.

Articles & Learning

• JTAG Hacking with a Raspberry Pi - Introducing the PiFex
  A nice overview of a Raspberry Pi-based hacking tool and how it can be used with JTAG interfaces. — Eric

• Updating U-Boot with an A/B Strategy – Burkhard Stubert
  Cool article about A/B updates! — Pat

• The TTY demystified
  Overview of the TTY system in Linux. The first step in understanding how your keys reach your terminal. — Eric

• newlib and FreeRTOS
  Deep dive into dynamic memory allocation when using FreeRTOS and Newlib. — Noah

• Ninja Calc
  Really cool series of purpose-built calculators in hardware design to help with things like NTC thermistors, LED current limiting, and trace currents. — Eric

• John Graham-Cumming’s blog: Controlling the Taylor Swift Eras Tour wristbands with Flipper Zero
  Not a technically deep article, but a fun hack using Flipper on LED concert wristbands (including a short video explaining them) — Heiko

• CADmium: A Local-First CAD Program Built for the Browser
  Finally, CAD in your browser! — Eric

• DIY 256-Core RISC-V super computer - YouTube
  This YouTuber took 256 RISC-V microcontrollers and wired them into a mini-supercomputer. It’s completely impractical but a very cool project. — François

• Evolution of the ELF object file format | MaskRay
  A historical look at the ELF format. — Eric

• Surprise! ESP32-S3 has (a few) SIMD instructions
  High-level description of the SIMD extensions on the ESP32-S3 chip. This only surfaced last year and is a pretty nice feature of these chips! — Noah

• ESP32-S3 SIMD Minimal Example
  A simple demo to complement the instructions above. — Noah

• Low-Power Optimization Techniques for ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers | MCU on Eclipse
  Article from MCUOnEclipse about Cortex-M Power optimizations. (My pick)

• Hirrolot/datatype99: Algebraic data types for C99
  Safe, intuitive algebraic data types with exhaustive pattern matching & compile-time introspection facilities. No external tools required, pure C99. — François

• ricardoquesada/bluepad32: Bluetooth gamepad, mouse and keyboard support for ESP32 and PicoW
  Project providing client support for Bluetooth gamepads on several host platforms. — Noah

• haydenridd/stm32-zig-porting-guide: Compiling an STM32CubeMX with Zig’s compiler instead of arm-none-eabi-gcc.
  Compiling an STM32CubeMX with Zig’s compiler instead of arm-none-eabi-gcc. — Matheus Catarino França

News & Announcements

• GCC 14 Release Series — Changes, New Features, and Fixes - GNU Project
  GCC 14.1 released 🎉!

• Solar Storms Break Millions of Smart Devices | Memfault
  A data analysis on how the May 2024 solar storm impacted Memfault customers’ smart devices. — François

Upcoming Events

• June 24-28 | Launch Week - Memfault
  We are introducing Product Analytics for embedded devices. Join us for our Launch Week!

Tyler Hoffman has worked on the embedded software teams at Pebble and Fitbit. He is now a founder at Memfault.