Top all-time · #1294
Jack's Site
Personal blog · ganssle.comhardwareprogramming
Jack's Site is a personal blog at ganssle.com about hardware and programming. Since 2007, 54 different Hacker News readers have linked it 92 times, most often ““A Guide to Debouncing, Or, How to Debounce a Contact in Two Easy Pages” Part 1”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Often recommended · 18 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Jack Ganssle's site is linked for embedded systems writing: the debouncing series, low-power design essays, war stories, and The Embedded Muse newsletter. Readers cite it as a practical reference for engineers.
- Recommended for · 18 comments
- Debouncing series called 'definitive' and 'good info'; newsletter 'very informational'; low-power post 'epic'; author 'a great writer'.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- “A Guide to Debouncing, Or, How to Debounce a Contact in Two Easy Pages” Part 16 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2013-03-11
- /tem-subunsub.html5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2014-07-02
- Hardware and Firmware Issues in Using Ultra-Low Power MCUs4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2015-01-05
- How to Debounce a Contact (2014)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-01-05
- /tem-back.htm4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2013-10-03
- How to Become an Embedded Systems Geek3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-09-25
- The last issue of The Embedded Muse (#500)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-10-21
- Testing RAM2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-06-24
- Great Watchdog Timers for Embedded Systems2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-02-27
- /tem/tem289.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-01-19
What Hacker News says?
There's some good info here if anyone is interested: http://www.ganssle.com/debouncing.htm
Comment linking /debouncing.htm
on “Open-Sourcing our Firmware”Submitted How to Debounce a Contact (2014) as a story · 150 points
HN discussionI suppose the lessons are: there's room for lots of improvement in search engines There's also the tried and true distribution method of newsletters and mailing lists specific to a certain industry. If you've been in embedded a long time, you probably know about Jack Ganssle and his "Embedded Muse" newsletter, which has been going on for about 20 years now. http://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem337.html
Comment linking /tem/tem337.html
on “Exploring different microcontrollers less than $1”Submitted Great Watchdog Timers For Embedded Systems (2016) as a story · 57 points
HN discussionre embedded vs digital design Yeah, embedded was what I was talking about and trial&error was what I was worried about. What I've seen people write up is a lot more difficult than software in general. I remember one had severe application issues when it ran with instant on that were eventually resolved as the PLL's not synced up. They put a delay in to let them warm up. Program worked fine. Seen some stuff in immuni…
Comment linking /tem/tem262.html
on “Redox – A Unix-Like Operating System Written in Rust”Submitted Hardware and Firmware Issues in Using Ultra-Low Power MCUs as a story · 38 points
HN discussionI really, really like The Art of Programming Embedded Systems but I think that (1) it's out of print now and (2) it has some dated advice (that was excellent at the time) that can send a modern programmer down the wrong path. OTOH, Jack has a mailing list: http://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem432.html that is current and very informational. I agree that Arduino is not a good start if you intend to become a professional. Ar…
Comment linking /tem/tem432.html
on “Facts every web dev should know before they burn out and turn to painting”Submitted The 7 Habits of Highly Dysfunctional Developers (1998) as a story · 24 points
HN discussionJack Ganssle’s The Embedded Muse covers tools and techniques in embedded development. In one article, he reported that 4-bit MCU’s were still competitive in some sectors: https://www.ganssle.com/rants/is4bitsdead.htm I suspected we’d see either 4- or 8-bit return for neural networks. IBM did try the kilocore processor which was a massively-parallel, 8-bit system. Multicore 4- and 8-bitters are also the kind thing pe…
Comment linking /rants/is4bitsdead.htm
on “Linux/4004: booting Linux on Intel 4004 for fun, art, and no profit”Submitted The last issue of The Embedded Muse (#500) as a story · 15 points
HN discussionHere is a good article for you to read written by a long time embedded systems guy directed at those looking to get into the industry: http://www.ganssle.com/startinges.htm
Comment linking /startinges.htm
on “Ask HN: What should a systems/low-level software engineer know?”Submitted CAD and Privacy as a story · 13 points
HN discussionHow are they poor choices? Methinks you're just looking in wrong places if they're languages you want to continue using at a job. Embedded is hot right now, so sign up for the Jack Ganssle's Embedded Muse Newsletter http://www.ganssle.com/tem-subunsub.html . The jobs are going to be mostly US based, but some place to start. And look for companies that you know are going to be using C/CPP from their products. Even if…
Comment linking /tem-subunsub.html
on “The Unemployable Programmer”Submitted Real Time Programming (1998) as a story · 13 points
HN discussionA while back (I'd guess about 15 years ago, so suddenly I feel old), Jack Ganssle ( http://www.ganssle.com/tem-subunsub.html ) said he was selling his embedded tooling company, SoftAid because after doing it for so long, he had gotten tired of "pushing the same bits around." At the time, I simply couldn't understand that. Sure, I hadn't been writing code as long as he had, but I couldn't imagine enjoying anything mo…
Comment linking /tem-subunsub.html
on “Anxiety in product development”Submitted Firmware is the most expensive thing in the universe. as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThis is not bleeding edge stuff, some systems in the 70s with fraction of the RAM and CPU power had memory safety. Eg see here about running Ada on the same Cortex M4: http://www.ganssle.com/video/episode9-ada-on-a-microcontroll...
Comment linking /video/episode9-ada-on-a-microcontroller.html
on “Over the Air: Exploiting Broadcom’s Wi-Fi Stack”Submitted The Embedded Muse – final issue as a story · 3 points
HN discussion"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." ~ Gerald Weinberg. For those who don't know what the quote is. I found it here[1]. [1]: http://www.ganssle.com/articles/programmingquotations.htm
Comment linking /articles/programmingquotations.htm
on “Webb placed on top of Ariane 5”Submitted The Microprocessor at 40 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNo need to speculate: the market data has been showing a move toward 32-bit just as you thought would happen. https://semiengineering.com/mcu-sales-up-in-2017-and-2018/ As vvanders says, the hard data shows plenty of the market is still maximizing profit by using 8-bitters (33%) and 16-bitters (26%). That's a combined 59% of microcontrollers a 32-/64-bit-only language would be leaving on the table in terms of deploy…
Comment linking /rants/is4bitsdead.htm
on “Embedded in Rust: Brave new I/O”Submitted The Vote as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe Embedded Muse http://www.ganssle.com/tem-subunsub.html Jack Ganssle has some really good content he's written for other publications as well.
Comment linking /tem-subunsub.html
on “Ask HN: What are the underrated newsletters you like reading?”Submitted The reasons embedded projects get into trouble (2002) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIn embedded, using a cheaper microcontroller or HW offloading can bring big benefits. The former might boost profit a lit across high volume of units sold. 8-16 bit MCU's still account for a huge chunk of what's sold with it being over a billion dollar market. People will use C and/or assembly. For same reason, there's even still a market for 4-bit MCU's used in things like watches and Gilette razors. Like to see de…
Comment linking /rants/is4bitsdead.htm
on “The Art of Assembly Language (1996)”Submitted The Last Embedded Muse as a story · 2 points
HN discussionNeither FOSS projects nor commercial software use proven methods most of the time. That's why you see the results you see. I described that here: http://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem372.html#article4 The tools can also miss things. They miss more as complexity goes up. High-assurance systems used to structure things in a hierarchical way with simple functions and only call downs to aid the analysis. Basically, reduce comb…
Comment linking /tem/tem372.html
on “Rust: Beyond the Typechecker”Submitted An Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup (1998) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion`wait_for_next_tick();` in any microcontroller-based embedded system will put the CPU to sleep, often lowering your overall power consumption from the mA range it uses while actively running, to the uA range. Some systems, like those based on coin cells, will completely shut down the chip, leaving only a single timer or input active, and when triggered will turn back on and initialise the entire CPU again to handle…
Comment linking /reports/ultra-low-power-design.html
on “Exploring the software that flies SpaceX rockets and starships”Submitted How to Become an Embedded Systems Geek as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
