STM32 Virtual COM Port Issues

For some reason, the Virtual Com Port (VCP) drivers for STM32 chips were acting up and not properly enumerating a usable COM port on Windows when I was testing an STM32L476 chip.

I’m not sure if this is a chip-specific issue or if this problem shows up on more chips using the STM32Cube Hardware Abstraction Layer.

(Even after I installed Atollic TrueSTUDIO and the older STSW-LINK004 Windows utility, which I like better than the new STM32CubeProgrammer because it doesn’t require Java.)

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Does Microchip have a C++11 / C++14 / C++17 compiler for their 8-bit microcontrollers?

Not really.

Only the AVR series chips from the Atmel acquisition have this support, when using the open source GCC suite. And even then, their official compiler build is pretty old.

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mbed-memory-status Supports SWO Now

A quick note: I finally got around to updating mbed-memory-status to support outputting data using the Serial Wire Output port on a Nordic nRF52 Development Kit.

The trick to getting it work was, as usual with Nordic stuff, a compiler #define (-DENABLE_SWO to be exact). Took a bit of digging to figure this one out and get it working.

This actually lead to some further investigation and the interesting discovery that SWO could possibly offer an extra output-only serial port on most Cortex-M3-and-up chips. But, there are still some blockers on getting that thought working and I haven’t had the time to clear them.

Whither Intel?

It’s been a few weeks since I had a few interactions with the Intel Corporation, so I thought I’d write up a summary of what I think they’re screwing up from the small-developer / indie-developer perspective, in case whoever they choose as their next CEO is open to actual, on-the-ground perspectives.

The start of the story goes something like this: I had an idea about building a piece of electronics using their Thunderbolt 3 connectivity chips. It wasn’t such a huge idea, let’s say, but it would’ve been interesting to me, and it provided an excuse to learn more about the technology.

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