5 ms·

ARM programming, where do I start?

10 points by helwr 17y ago

Dav3xor 17y ago
Depends on what you want to do. Getting a beagleboard would be a no brainer to start out. http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Developers-Guide-Architecture/dp/1558608745 http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Developers-Guide-Architectu... is a good book, you might want to buy a copy. Some handy things to know about ARM.. logical operations can be added on to ALU instructions for free -- lots of speed gains there... If you have never done any embedded programming; expect things to take longer to write, and frustration levels can be pretty ugly. If you get an ARM chip that doesn't have floating point, and you need to do something mathematically intensive, look into fixed point math. Make everything you can into a table (most ARM chips have enough memory so that you can trade space for speed) Don't give up -- embedded requires tenacity. Oh, and Codesourcery provides good pre-compiled toolchains, but you have to dig around on their website a bit to find them.
- pan69 17y ago
  "If you get an ARM chip that doesn't have floating point..." Or that there is no dedicated instruction to divide. :)
kqr2 17y ago
Also, you can get started on an emulator such as qemu: http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/ http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/
- Hast 17y ago
  Or even start playing with eg Android SDK/NDK which runs their emulator on qemu. Pretty much all mobile phones run on ARM though so pick which ever you are most comfortable with.
pan69 17y ago
OK. These are the two books you need when you start out programming for ARM chips: ARM System-on-Chip Architecture (2nd Edition) By Steve Furber (the guy who designed the bloody chip!) http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Chip-Architecture-2nd/dp/0201675196/ref=sr_1_3?e=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270705044&sr=1-3 http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Chip-Architecture-2nd/dp/02... ARM Architecture Reference Manual (2nd Edition) By David Seal http://www.amazon.com/ARM-Architecture-Reference-Manual-2nd/dp/0201737191/ref=pd_sim_b_6 http://www.amazon.com/ARM-Architecture-Reference-Manual-2nd/...
stusmith1977 17y ago
Slightly off the wall idea... but you could buy an old Archimedes or RiscPC off eBAY. There's an ARM assembler built-in (OS, BASIC V, assembler, and some apps are in ROM).

10 points by helwr 17y ago

Depends on what you want to do. Getting a beagleboard would be a no brainer to start out. http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Developers-Guide-Architecture/dp/1558608745 http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Developers-Guide-Architectu... is a good book, you might want to buy a copy. Some handy things to know about ARM.. logical operations can be added on to ALU instructions for free -- lots of speed gains there... If you have never done any embedded programming; expect things to take longer to write, and frustration levels can be pretty ugly. If you get an ARM chip that doesn't have floating point, and you need to do something mathematically intensive, look into fixed point math. Make everything you can into a table (most ARM chips have enough memory so that you can trade space for speed) Don't give up -- embedded requires tenacity. Oh, and Codesourcery provides good pre-compiled toolchains, but you have to dig around on their website a bit to find them.

pan69 17y ago
"If you get an ARM chip that doesn't have floating point..." Or that there is no dedicated instruction to divide. :)

kqr2 17y ago

Also, you can get started on an emulator such as qemu: http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/ http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/

Hast 17y ago
Or even start playing with eg Android SDK/NDK which runs their emulator on qemu. Pretty much all mobile phones run on ARM though so pick which ever you are most comfortable with.

pan69 17y ago

OK. These are the two books you need when you start out programming for ARM chips: ARM System-on-Chip Architecture (2nd Edition) By Steve Furber (the guy who designed the bloody chip!) http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Chip-Architecture-2nd/dp/0201675196/ref=sr_1_3?e=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270705044&sr=1-3 http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Chip-Architecture-2nd/dp/02... ARM Architecture Reference Manual (2nd Edition) By David Seal http://www.amazon.com/ARM-Architecture-Reference-Manual-2nd/dp/0201737191/ref=pd_sim_b_6 http://www.amazon.com/ARM-Architecture-Reference-Manual-2nd/...

stusmith1977 17y ago

Slightly off the wall idea... but you could buy an old Archimedes or RiscPC off eBAY. There's an ARM assembler built-in (OS, BASIC V, assembler, and some apps are in ROM).