Little Micros That Could

　　通常，微控制器討論的焦點是最新的32位設備。它是最快的嗎？它有最多的記憶嗎？它是否擁有最大的外設集？它有最低的功率嗎？

　　然而，對于每一個應用程序，這些新設備找到一個家，有許多更多的8位微控制器正在愉快地填補一個需要。

　　傳統的8位應用程序是通過一個簡單的串行接口對內存進行限制和通信的。軟件通常是手工匯編代碼，旨在用代碼的最小內存來壓縮處理的最大值。今天，仍然有幾個8位體系結構，包括經典的通用8051設計。對于每個體系結構，常常有多個實現。每個實現都可以有大量的變體，具有不同的處理器速度、不同的功耗、不同的內存配置、不同的外設選擇以及不同的封裝選項。結合這些，在一個家庭中獲得數百個不同的部分和數千個特定的體系結構是很常見的。

　　為某個特定應用程序選擇最佳配置很快就會成為問題。幸運的是，除了傳統的“紙和鉛筆”定義需求的方法之外，還有允許開發原型來探索配置的板子，提供更好的信息來幫助決定應用程序的最合適的設備。

　　One way to explore an application before committing to a specific architecture is through Arduino. Arduino is an open-source project concerned with， as the Arduino web site says， “making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer.” This is perhaps a definition of embedded systems. It revolves around the Arduino board， a family of small development boards each with an Arduino processor - an Atmel ATMega 8-bit processor from the AVR family. The processor is programmed using an Arduino programming language in an Arduino development environment that runs under Windows， Macintosh OSX， and Linux operating systems. The development boards are available as fully populated boards， as bare boards， or as design files. Supporting this is a number of interface boards （again populated or as build your own） and educational kits. Arduino users are encouraged to share designs and code on the project web site.