Chapter 9. Putting It All Together

La commedia é finita! (The comedy is finished!)

—Ruggero Leoncavallo Pagliacci

In this chapter, we will bring all of the elements discussed so far together into a complete embedded application. Working hard to understand each piece of a system and application is necessary, but certain aspects may remain confusing until all of the pieces are combined. You should leave this chapter with a complete understanding of the example program and the ability to develop useful embedded applications of your own.

Application Overview

The application we’re going to discuss is comprised of the components we have developed thus far, along with some additional functionality. It is a testament to the complexity of embedded software development that this example comes toward the end of this book rather than at its beginning. We’ve had to gradually build our way up to the computing platform that most books, and even high-level language compilers, take for granted.

The Monitor and Control application provides a means for you to exercise different aspects of an embedded system (hardware and software) by adding to the basic command set we provide in this book. You will quickly see, as your project progresses from design to production, how valuable this tool is to everyone working on the project.

Once you’re able to write the Monitor and Control program, your embedded platform starts to look a lot like any other programming environment. The hardest parts of the embedded ...

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