Embedded newbie

How to program the STM32VLDISCOVERY board ? ST does not provide a toolchain themselves, instead there are three different officially supported toolchains available, for which ST has provided simple tutorials. All of the three official toolchains are for Windows, so Linux users have to think of something else. Fortunately, multiple options exist for also Linux users. Here's an overview of all the tools I'm aware of. First off, I'll explain the easy, official options. These are unfortunately only for Windows users. Officially promoted toolchains ST provides example code and documentation for three toolchains: Atollic TrueSTUDIO, IAR Embedded Workbench and Keil MDK-ARM. Download ST's example firmware package here User manual for the firmware package Below are some quick facts & links about the official toolchains. Atollic TrueSTUDIO (Windows) This is an Eclipse -based development platform that includes an optimizing C/C++ compiler, editor and a de...

The STM32VLDISCOVERY evaluation board. The STM32VLDISCOVERY is a $10 evaluation board for the STM32 value line microcontrollers. It has a 64-pin STM32F100RB microcontroller, can be powered & programmed via USB, one user push button, a reset button and two user leds. The board is quite barren and doesn't have much features, just I/O pins - but that's exactly what we DIYers want! You can decide yourself what you want to use the ports for. Only downsides to the board are bad Linux support (three proprietary windows toolchains are supported) & bad breadboard compatibility . Luckily, you can go around both issues with a bit of effort. STM32F100RB features:  - 32-bit!  - CPU frequency max. 24 MHz (evaluation board has a 8 MHz crystal)  -128 kilobytes of Flash program memory  - 8 kilobytes of SRAM  - Up to 7 16-bit PWM timers: 1 advanced control timer, 6 general-purpose timers  - Communication interfaces: 2 x SPI , 2 x I2C , 3 x USART ,...