The embedded controller bunch is a growing category that attracted some of the older hardware crowd, but also a new batch of hobbyists who are more akin to programmers than electronic engineers. Since every electronic product has an embedded controller today, it makes sense for hobbyists to pursue such projects. There are tons of cheap development boards, kits, and other stuff to make things interesting. The premier magazine serving this group is Circuit Cellar. Nuts & Volts magazine, about the only surviving generic electronic experimenter magazine, also covers embedded controller projects.
The "Systems" Hobbyist
There is also what appears to be another kind of electronic hobbyist emerging. This is what I refer to as a systems hobbyist. Systems hobbyists buy and experiment with every electronic gadget. They might be fascinated with FRS (family radio service) two-way radios for example. They have surround sound audio systems and were probably the first in their neighborhood to get the big screen HDTV, TiVo, satellite TV dish, and all the other related stuff. Or they do shortwave listening or experiment with the new HD, XM, or Sirius satellite radios to their car. These people also do geocaching with their GPS receivers and install 400-W stereo systems in their trucks. Others hook up their MP3 players to their stereo systems. Some install their own home security systems. PC gamers are in this category with their hyped up super computer-level PCs with graphics that will blow you away. Anyway, they are the non-ham equivalent to an appliance operator. They work strictly at the system level, but still need a general understanding about what goes on inside these devices. They connect stuff together and make it work. They hang around at Best Buy and Circuit City rather than Radio Shack. It is fun stuff. Yikes, what I just described is all the rest of us. The consumer electronics person.
Consumers are more enamored of their electronic devices than ever before. The whole consumer electronics space has grown horrendously over the years. And we all own more electronic products than ever. I guess that does make us all electronic hobbyists of a sort.
Am I an experimenter? I actually am. I have a bench with test equipment, breadboards, and mostly older used stuff (100 MHz analog scope, etc.) and some power supplies and odds and ends of ham test equipment like a counter, signal generator, power/SWR meter, etc. And I have several PIC and 68HC11 embedded controller development kits I use for the programming, mostly still in assembler (I hate C.) I have been playing around with some of the many ISM wireless modules lately. Really cool how cheap and easy it is to make almost anything wireless. And like in ham radio, the experimenting possibilities with antennas are limitless. I just put up a G5RV antenna, but ended up needing an automatic antenna tuner to get it to work. Endless fun.
Electronics has evolved and so, as a result, has the hobbyist. So perhaps the whole electronic hobby thing didn't really go away, it just changed. It is different now because the way we design, build, and make electronic equipment just does not make it practical to work at the component level. We don't fix much of our electronic equipment anyway. We just throw it away and get new and better ones. Aren't we all just looking for our cell phone to fail or get lost so we can get a cool new smart phone?
I think you should get over your hatred of C. It is a language tool that is truly optimized for larger systems. It is a real tool even though it is a "language tool" as is Assembler. A larger pipe wrench can make a large pipe turn when a smaller one might not accomplish a thing. The right tool makes the job easier for the worker, but more importantly enables the worker to do the job more effectively. I can't think of a language that had as much professional thought put into it than C. It is a tool crafted by it's users for it's users. It offers portability to other processors or MCU's. The programming effort you put forward on one type of MCU can easily be used on another with minimal or no changes to your code. Assembler is ideal for small well defineable tasks, but if you want to integrate many small well defined tasks into a whole system as you were speaking of then C is the wrench. If you want to go to even larger systems with alot of people involved in the programming (say a computer game with wild graphics) then C++. I understand this "hatred", I used to hate C++ till I learned a little of it and now see the limitations of C.
Anonymous -September 06, 2009
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