Summary
In this chapter, we have defined what a microcontroller is, as well as its capabilities and limitations. We have also looked at what integrated circuits are (keeping in mind that microcontrollers are a type of integrated circuit) and how their pins are arranged in packages. In addition to this, we analyzed what ports are in microcontroller boards. This is important to know because at some point in future projects, you will need to identify the order of those pins in order to connect sensors or other devices to them. Table 1.1 showed the hardware description and operating voltage for both the Curiosity Nano and the Blue pill, which is 5 volts.
We then looked at a brief introduction to electronics and the main electronic components used in this and other chapters. We explored how to install two integrated development environment tools for programming the two microcontroller boards used in this book. The two boards have two different ways of uploading a compiled program to...