In Part 3, we gave MicrOS logging compile-time filtering and per-module verbosity control. That already makes it a powerful tool for day-to-day development. But what if we want to push further? In this final part of the series, I’ll explore runtime flexibility, multiple backends, timestamps, and structured logs. These are…
In Part 2, we added colors, severity tags, and file/line information to MicrOS logs. Now we’re going to take it further: instead of just printing everything, we’ll give developers fine-grained control over what gets logged. This is crucial in embedded systems, where every byte of flash and every CPU cycle…
In Part 1 of this series, I explained why logging matters for MicrOS and how we started with a simple design: log levels, a global ceiling, and per-module registration. That gave us the skeleton of a logging system — but the output was still plain and hard to scan. In…
When working with microcontrollers, debugging can feel like peering through a keyhole. Unlike desktop development, there’s no rich OS to lean on, no debugger always attached, and no full-featured console to tell you what went wrong. If your system crashes, often the only trace left is whatever text you managed…
One of the challenges of building an embedded operating system is handling system initialization in a clean, modular way. As MicrOS grows, we don’t want board bring-up code, driver setup, and diagnostics all crammed inside main(). That’s why we’ve added a lightweight initialization framework to MicrOS, inspired by how Linux…
In the last article, we looked at how PendSV swaps thread contexts using prebuilt stack frames. Now it’s time to give our kernel a proper yield mechanism — so threads can give up the CPU voluntarily, or automatically via a timer tick. The Yield API MicrOS provides task_yield() as the…
One of the most magical parts of an RTOS is when the CPU suddenly stops running one function and starts running another — as if by sleight of hand. In MicrOS, this magic is powered by the PendSV exception and carefully constructed stack frames for each thread. This post goes…
With the LM3S8965EVB QEMU target, MicrOS has taken its first big step into becoming a real operating system:we now support context switching and a simple task API. In this post, I’ll explain what a context switch is, why it matters, and how MicrOS makes it work on ARM Cortex-M (LM3S).…
For the last couple of days I’ve been battling with my custom embedded operating system — MicrOS (slogan: “simple, open, embedded”). The goal was straightforward: get a bare-metal “Hello, world” sample running under emulation, before moving to real hardware. The journey turned out to be more educational than I expected.…
MicrOS is a new open-source embedded operating system designed to be simple, open, and educational.It’s inspired by great projects like Zephyr, FreeRTOS, and RIOT, but with a twist: MicrOS aims to stay small, transparent, and beginner-friendly. 🎯 Why MicrOS? The embedded ecosystem is rich with feature-packed RTOSes. They are powerful,…