Dean Camera talks engineering, Atmel style

Atmel Applications Engineer Dean Camera recently sat down with EEWeb to discuss Atmel-powered Arduino boards, his favorite dev tools, tricky bugs and the contents of his bookshelf.

On the subject of DIY Makers and encouraging an interest in electronics from an early age, Camera said he recommends getting involved, asking questions and experimenting ASAP.

“The Arduino platform is a great start into the world of embedded systems; it gives you known working hardware and a simple environment,” Camera explained. “However, remember to gradually tear it down and replace bits and pieces with the less ‘kid glove’ versions so you learn how it all works.”

In terms of his favorite dev tools, Camera highlighted JTAG ICE-3 and Rigol DS1052E.

“For hardware, my JTAG ICE-3 and my Rigol DS1052E. If a problem can’t be solved with one, it can probably be solved by the other. Granted I need to invest in some more specialized equipment some day (the Saleae logic analyzers was a god-send at work) but for now those are my main gotos,” said Camera. “For software, Sublime Text is my one and only editor, and Git. PEOPLE, LEARN GIT.”

And the trickiest bug Camera’s ever fixed? A USB Mass Storage Class driver.

“My problem is that I forget problems once I (eventually) solve them – but I’ve gone through my share of Heisenbugs that change based on how you observe them. Race conditions are unfortunately a huge part of my life and I’m resigned to solving them with a smile, but it’s a grim task,” he added. “I can say from experience however that debugging a USB Mass Storage Class driver using the same host Windows platform is not fun, as the default behavior of the Windows storage driver appears to be ‘bluescreen.'”

And last, but certainly not least, Camera says he’s long kept the Forest Mims book on his bookshelf, along with books from Joe that helped him make his entry into the world of embedded C.

Interested in reading more about Dean Camera? The full interview can be found on EE Web here.