The Owl Embedded Python Environment

Imagine my typical day. My alarm clock goes off and I immediately check my email on my iPhone. I stumble out of bed, make myself a cup of coffee and watch the morning news that my TiVo kindly recorded for me. I unlock my car and am presented with a map that shows the traffic on my route to work.

While there were three obvious computers in this little story, there are dozens more unsung heroes you probably didn’t even think about. My alarm clock, my coffee maker, my TiVo remote, and my car key all are built around a microcontroller. My car is built around dozens of them. This article is about programming these very real, very complex computer systems.