Hello all,
I'm an experienced C++ programmer but very beginner to the world of embedded. My intention is to use modern C++ for embedded programming especially on ARM MCU. As my first hands-on experiment, I need to start with a Blue Pill and make its LED blink. Sadly, due to the hard situation in the place I live in, finding even such an simple board can be difficult. I'm not sure this is the right place on the site to ask my questions in this regard or not, but I hope so. I've got two questions:1) Is there any popular emulator that can properly emulate an MCU like Blue Pill, Black Pill or lower/higher models so that I can run my C++ program and observe the results on it? For instance, to see an LED blinking? If so, what's that good emulator, please? I've got two machines to install that emulator software on: Windows, and Linux.
2) What're the advantages and disadvantages of using such an emulator versus having real boards for that purpose, please?
Thanks beforehand.
I wrote you a reply but I don't know why it's been deleted! :|Thank you for your answer. Is Nucleo board that different from a Black Pill (STM32F411) for which there're step-by-step tuts on the STM website: https://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/support/learning/stm32-education/stm32-step-by-step.html on how to get started? Of course both boards are STM32, so the tuts may work for both.If you still recommend a Nucleo board, what model of that is suitable for me, please?I need a rather cheap model so that I can rely on it for various projects from blinking an LED to a little higher level ones.
Hi Ary, perhaps it is best to explain what you are trying to achieve. If it is simply to program boards with limited awareness of what is going on 'under the hood', then there are a number of programs out there for these... for example Arduino (of which Black Pill is an example), mbed, or Raspberry Pi Nano.
If you are looking at lower level programming, for example bringing up an RTOS, or at-the-metal programming, then boards such as Nucleo make more sense.