Computers as Components, 2nd Edition

1.5 A Guided Tour of This Book 47

includes memory, I/O devices, and low-level software. We need to understand the

basic characteristics of the platform before we move on to build sophisticated

systems.

The basic embedded computing platform includes a microprocessor, I/O hard-

ware,I/O driver software, and memory. Application-specific software and hardware

can be added to this platform to turn it into an embedded computing platform. The

microprocessor is at the center of both the hardware and software structure of the

embedded computing system. The CPU controls the bus that connects to memory

and I/O devices; the CPU also runs software that talks to