Alan Schnittman wrote: > I am thinking about attending the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston > next week. Several of the sessions seem interesting but none of the > material is directly relevant to my current work. Some of the appeal is > due to name recognition of the speakers such as Jack Ganssle and Gary > Stringham to name two. For those who have attended in the past, did you > find the sessions to be worthwhile? Consider that I'll be paying for this > myself; my employer may foot the bill next time. Either way, I'd like to > attend the expo so if any PicListers want to meet up there, let's make a > plan. I went in 2006 and 2008, and found it to be quite interesting and useful, both in the exhibitor area and in the sessions. With regard to the sessions, you have to read between the lines a little bit on the descriptions and decide whether it's an "entry level" type class that you're going to find boring, but in general, whatever the level, the presentations are quite good. Also, the giveaways tend to be rather nice. Last year, I scored a nice nano-ITX system in a box from the Microsoft presentation. Olin Lathrop added: > I went two or three times a few years back. It was heading downhill, > so I stopped going. It seemed the only embedded systems anyone knew > about were single board PC-like computers. Half the vendors were trying > to sell you yet another fancy software package that would cut your > development time from a year to a week, prevent you from ever writing > another bug, and describe your system in a natural language and it would > do all the coding. I really didn't find that to be the case at all. Sure, there's always a bunch of embedded PC vendors, but they are definitely in the minority next to the microprocessor, DSP, FPGA and other specialized folks. > I've never gone to the sessions, only the exhibition. Microchip didn't > used to exhibit, so they must have also seen it as a waste of time too. > I hear they are exhibiting this year, so maybe it's worth taking > another look. Microchip had large exhibits both years; in fact, last year they partnered with Digi-Key in a big booth. They had lots of people to answer questions and show off their development tools. The ICD3 was pretty new at that time, and only available initially through Digi-Key. Unfortunately, I'm pretty busy this year, so I'll probably only go for one day, and pretty much just in the exhibits area (although I may hit one of the Beagleboard sessions if possible). When not actually wandering around, I'll be hanging out in the Circuit Cellar booth. If anyone wants to meet up -- or even better, float some ideas for articles -- contact me off-list (substitute 'dtweed' for 'pic' in my return address) and I'll give you my cell number. -- Dave Tweed -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist