<aside> 💡 Labs Blog is located toward the bottom of this page.

</aside>

Microcontrollers: The Basics

• Microcontrollers are optimized for control of physical input and output.

• Input circuits called sensors. Output circuits called actuators.

• Computer and processor  are generic terms for the anything that can run a program.

• Controller or microcontroller  is usually reserved for a simple processor that does only one task, like listening to sensors.

• Microcontrollers generally don’t run operating systems, but they often run boot-loaders.

  • Boot-loader is a firmware program that lives in a part of the controller’s memory, and can re-program the rest of that memory.

  Programs for Microcontrollers and Other Processors

  Programs for any processors fall into a few different classes:

  firmware, boot-loaders, basic input-output systems, and operating systems.

• Boot-loaders and BIOSes(Basic Input-Output System) are often called firmware  because they’re loaded into the flash memory of the processor itself.

  • Other programs live on external storage devices like disk drives, and are loaded by the BIOS. These are what we usually think of software.
  • Operating system - a program that manages other programs.
  • Compilers - Programs are compiled into the binary instructions that a processor can read using programs.
  • Applications - that an operating system runs also live on external storage devices like disk drives.

Microcontroller Development Boards and Activity Boards

Development boards usually include:

• The processor itself
• Power regulation circuitry
• Hardware programmer connector
• Communications interface circuitry
• Basic indicator LEDs

**A development board allows you to program the controller’s firmware and software, but an **activity board** may not.**

Toolchains and Development Environments

• Toolchain - is the combination of compilers and  linkers needed to convert the instructions you write into a binary file that the microcontroller can interpret as its instructions and the programmer software needed to upload that into the processor.