". Net Micro Framework portingkit–15" porting summary (also on MF future development)

Starting from New Year's Day, we use our spare time to work on the porting of the. Net Micro Framework on the CORTEX-M3 kernel. Although it's been one months now, I spend most of my normal working hours with my colleagues on WiFi-driven development, eliminating the time it takes to write this series of articles and actually porting the CORTEX-M3 kernel for up to more than 10 days. That doesn't mean that I have a deep grounding in the embedded field, although my PC platform software development time has more than 10 years of history, but do real embedded development is the last two years (although the previous development of the PLC program and wince platform configuration software, but at best only as embedded application development), This does not mean that I know much about the. NET Micro framework, although the most important work in Microsoft is to do. NET Micro framework development, but more than a year's time, has nearly half a year of time is doing MSN Direct's work (mainly with SQL and Web Services), the only explanation is that porting the. Net Micro Framework system is not that difficult, especially for those real embedded developers.

Why did you choose a chip based on the CORTEX-M3 kernel? One is because this is arm company's newest technology crystallization, represents the arm company's future technology trend, the second is through the understanding discovery, cortex-m3 from the structure subversion formerly ARM7, the ARM9, the ARM11 design, not only the performance is excellent, the development is simple, More stringent restrictions on CORTEX-M3-core chips from different companies (such as memory mapping, interrupted by the first 15 systems) have reduced the workload of chip transplants for different manufacturers to a minimum.

Why did you choose the em-stm3210e Development Board? That's because there's a cortex-m3 based Development Board handy.

I think a lot of people are interested in the experience of switching from a normal PC software developer to an embedded software developer (specifically, a Windows platform developer to an embedded developer, a much easier transition for Linux developers). In fact, thanks to our era, when we go to college, we have no chance to learn what Windows platform development, not so much development language and architecture to learn, we can learn basic and C language (of course, and pascal,foxbase,dbase and other development languages), University has nearly three years of time spent on C + + and data structure, the graduate design of the "Book Management System" (using Borland C 3.1 development) finally also gain excellent. After graduating unexpectedly, in the era of Windows development is king, there are also three times to use C + + development DOS Platform application experience. The first time is to develop a metering system, mainly from the ISA acquisition card to read data collection, and its graphics library is reused when I graduated from the development of the graphics library; the second is the development of Jinan steel Coke oven four locomotive automation system, because of the use of AB RsLogix5000 PLC, and location collection is the use of my original company design of the infrared ruler system, because its communication protocol is not a standard protocol, so the use of RSLOGIX5000 plc is not directly to obtain location data, so also purchased a MVI56 programmable module, the module is a stand-alone small embedded system, Its operating system for tiny DOS, using Borland C for its application development, detailed content, interested friends can see I have written before the article "AB RsLogix5000 plc third party module MVI56 programming Development"; The third time is to develop the tunnel advertising system, the need to implement the tcp/ IP to the serial port function, was selected by the company's a DOS development Board, the development environment is also Borland C3.1, the details still please see my article "Embedded system Modbus TCP to Modbus RTU Protocol converter Development."

The most important thing to say is that for embedded development, C/s + + is essential, because C + + is the main language of embedded development, relatively small percentage of compilation (mainly the boot code), if there is no knowledge of C/s + + language, Learning embedded development will be a difficult and lengthy process.

Why do you choose the. Net Micro Framework as the entry point for embedded development? Because. Net MF is less complex (relative to uc/os-ii) than other embedded systems (as opposed to wince, embedded Linux), and is slightly Vientiane, with a wide range of knowledge, encompassing not only a small operating system, but also a streamlined runtime of the CLR, The difficult and valuable is also contains a powerful debugging system, really can be described as "though small, spite".

In addition, learning the. Net Micro Framework is also the best channel for the successful transition of Windows platform developers to true embedded development, from which you can easily transition to other embedded systems, such as Uc/os-ii,uclinux, embedded Linux and other systems And wince is not, people who have studied wince know that wince development is more difficult to drive development and platform porting, and this code writing, compiling and debugging are based on Microsoft's own PB development environment (currently as a plug-in as part of Visual Studio), It's hard to get in touch with what MDK, RVDS, GCC, etc. development tools, you for learning wince and wince, you will be bound, difficult to transfer to other embedded systems, as for wince application development, and PC platform development is almost no difference, perhaps you have developed a few years of wince application development , strictly speaking, you are still not a real embedded developer. Of course, if you only learn embedded Linux application development, then you are not a real embedded developer, the real embedded developers should at least have to deal with the interrupt and chip register experience.