Name: Introduction to Embedded Systems
ISBN: 9780262533812

What Hacker News says

rramadassSep 2026

Also as a person who came to Embedded/Electronics from the Software side, i found the following incredibly useful to bridge the software-hardware gap using MCUs;

1) Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using Microcontrollers and the MSP430 by Manuel Jiménez, Rogelio Palomera, Isidoro Couvertier - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-3143-5

This has more of a hardware interfacing slant than most books on embedded systems which is what a software person needs. Every topic is first introduced in a general way with lots of illustrations and then its application in MSP430 is shown. Hence we can easily transfer our understanding to any other MCU family. A really good textbook for serious students of embedded electronics.

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rramadassApr 2025

Two more of my favourites for Embedded Microcontroller based systems are;

Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using Microcontrollers and the MSP430 by Manuel Jimenez et al. An excellent textbook with an emphasis on interfacing to a MCU from a hardware perspective. The chapter titled "The Analog Signal Chain" is by itself worth the price of the book.

Patterns for Time-Triggered Embedded Systems by Michael Pont. Full of C code for 8051 which you can study and then adapt to your specific MCU family. Free book available at https://www.safetty.net/publications/pttes Also checkout all of his other books since they are also full of C code examples.

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rramadassFeb 2025

Related: There is a domain of study named Cyber-Physical Systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber%E2%80%93physical_system) which is basically a inter-disciplinary approach combining mathematical theory, physical sensors/actuators/I/O devices, network communication and software architectures. I used to think it was just a buzzword for Embedded Systems but it is actually a distinct holistic view of looking at the whole entangled system.

This free book Introduction to Embedded Systems - A Cyber-Physical Systems Approach by Lee & Seshia gives a pretty good overview - https://ptolemy.berkeley.edu/books/leeseshia/

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rramadassDec 2023

I found the following books quite useful in my study of "Embedded Systems/Hardware" coming from a purely Software background. Without overwhelming you they provide just the right level/amount of Hardware knowledge to get you going.

1) Designing Embedded Hardware by John Catsoulis.

2) Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using Microcontrollers and the MSP430 by Manuel Jimenez et al.

3) Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market by Alan Cohen.

You can also look at using Digilent equipment (eg. Analog Discovery 3 or 2) and learning materials along with Arduino/MSP430/whatever to get better practical insight into your system - https://digilent.com/reference/landing and https://digilent.com/reference/learn/start

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rramadassNov 2022

100% this!

When i started learning Embedded Systems (lots of C/C++ Programming experience but without an Electronics background) it was understanding the needed Electronics and how to interface/debug the Hardware-Software interface where i had the most difficulty.

I found the following helpful in my education and hopefully people with a Software-only background who want to get into Embedded Systems will also find these useful;

* Designing Embedded Hardware by John Catsoulis - Very good introduction to relevant practical Electronics without drowning you in nitty-gritty details.

* Patterns for Time-Triggered Embedded Systems by Michael Pont (free pdf available at his company SafeTTy website) - Full of C code showing how to interface to hardware and do stuff.

* Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz, Simon Monk - Reference for when you need more Electronics knowledge.

* Understanding Signals with the PropScope from the company Parallax (search for free pdfs online) - Practical lab book showing how to use PropScope(a USB based Oscilloscope) to study Signals on circuits built using the Parallax BASIC Stamp MCU board. You can use any other MCU/Oscilloscope combination (eg. Arduino with Analog Discovery 2 aka AD2) to build the same circuits and do the lessons. Digilent also has a lot of lessons on using the AD2 at its website.

* Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using Microcontrollers and the MSP430 by Manuel Jimenez et al. - Excellent and nicely illustrated textbook to learn Embedded Systems from. The MSP430 MCU is used as a case study but everything is presented in a general way.

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rramadassOct 2022

Real-Time is a broad field and implemented in one of 3-ways a) On bare-metal, b) Using a RTOS (eg. FreeRTOS, QNX) c) On Linux/etc. As such you have to understand what is actually involved when you say something is "real-time" (Hard/Soft). As a first approximation "real-time" can be said to be about minimizing latency (within accepted bounds) of service requests (ISRs, task functions etc). Thus if you do it via (a) above you get the best control but have to do everything, (b) gives you some framework support via a RTOS kernel and (c) is always "soft real-time" unless you break out of the kernel. The difficulty increases as you go from (a)->(b)->(c) since there are more intermediate layers and abstractions. But this is the best way to approach the study of the subject. With that in mind i can suggest the following books;

1) Real-Time Embedded Systems: Design Principles and Engineering Practices by Xiaocong Fan. - Good text book.

2) Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using Microcontrollers and the MSP430 by Manuel Jiminez et.al. - Very good book teaching you bare-metal MCU programming.

3) Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers: Building real-time embedded systems using FreeRTOS, STM32 MCUs, and SEGGER debug tools by Brian Amos - Great book showing the use of all tools/ecosystem needed for RTOS programming.

4) POSIX.4 Programmers Guide: Programming for the Real World by Bill Gallmeister. - The classic indispensable work on "real-time programming" for Unix-like systems.

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