Alexandru Radovici - Getting Started with Secure Embedded Systems: Developing IoT Systems for micro:bit and Raspberry Pi Pico Using Rust and Tock

Alexandru Radovici and Ioana Culic

Getting Started with Secure Embedded Systems

Developing IoT Systems for micro:bit and Raspberry Pi Pico Using Rust and Tock

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Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the books product page, located at www.apress.com/978-1-4842-7788-1. For more detailed information, please visit http://www.apress.com/source-code.

Computers have been around us for many years. Even though most of us think of computers as boxes attached to a keyboard, a mouse, and a display, most of the computers used today are nothing like that. They are machines that crunch numbers, and they are everywhere. All the home appliances or even our cars have a computer inside; some have even more than one (e.g., in the case of a car, there is a computer that is driving the engine and another one that displays a friendly interface inside your vehicle and allows you to listen to your favorite song while driving). The Cloud we often refer to consists of large computers that look like boxes with blinking lights stored in large cool-aired rooms. The personal computer that we use daily, a laptop or a phone, is just the tip of the iceberg. Like most icebergs, the great majority of computers are not visible as they are embedded into devices, performing computations needed for the devices functioning. These are called embedded computers or embedded systems.

The first time computers were embedded into physical systems takes us back to NASAs Apollo program. Due to the complexities involved in maneuvering the Apollo spacecraft, in the 1960s, NASA turned to MITs Instrumentation Laboratory (nowadays a not-for-profit research institution called Draper Laboratory (AGC), one of the first embedded systems, was built.

As we can notice in Figure , the AGC looked very different from the computers we are familiar with today. Having the capabilities of a small chip, the Apollo Guidance Computer was built as a big ruggedized box, shielded to withstand the harsh outer space environment. The computer did most of its work without any human intervention. Astronauts could interface with the AGC using the display and keyboard interface (DSKY) , also called the dis-kee. As the primary purpose of the AGC was to control the spacecraft, it had dedicated interfaces capable of reading and controlling various subsystems like the RADAR, the Telemetry Link (link to NASAs control center), and the engines.