Making Things Talk

PREFACE XI

Many people whose experience of programming begins

with microcontrollers can do wonderful things with

some sensors and a couple of servomotors, but may not

have done much in the way of communication between

the microcontroller and other programs on a personal

computer. Similarly, many experienced network and

multimedia programmers have never experimented with

hardware of any sort, including microcontrollers. If you’re

either of these people, this book is for you. Because the

audience of this book is diverse, you may find some of the

introductory material a bit simple, depending on which

background you’re coming from. If so, feel free to skip past

the stuff you know and get to the meaty parts.

If you’ve never used a microcontroller, you’ll need a little

background before starting with this book. My previous

book, Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the

Physical World with Computers, co-authored with Dan

What You Need to Know

In order to get the most from this book, you should have a basic knowledge of electronics

and programming microcontrollers, some familiarity with the Internet, and access to both.

Contents of This Book

This book is composed of explanations of the concept that underlie networked objects,

followed by recipes to illustrate each set of concepts. Each chapter contains instructions on

how to build working projects that make use of the new ideas in