ESRG Windows® Tool Set Description

The ESRG Windows® tool set consists of a single InstallShield Express® installation executable.  The installation includes:

• EsrgConsole and EsrgScripter, graphical and console-mode (respectively) versions of Tcl/Tk with extensions for embedded software development.
• Other graphical utilities useful in embedded software development.
• Other console-mode utilities useful in embedded software development.
• The ESRG book (a work in progress) entitled "A Practitioner's Guide To The Design And Development Of Small Microcontroller Software", as a .PDF file.  The book contains much useful material, but more importantly documents the tool set.
• Technical papers and other technical resources to which we were able to obtain the copyright or permission to distribute them.
• A list of URLs useful in embedded software development.

These platforms are supported (the tool set may or may not install on other Windows® platforms):

• Windows 98®.
• Windows 2000®.
• Windows XP®.

The Windows® tool set is designed with these goals in mind:

• The installation (and uninstallation) should be very conservative and not interfere with any other software.  (The installation at present is nothing more than a simple file copy with some links set up on the desktop and in the START menu.  It will not interfere with other software and can be [improperly] uninstalled even by deleting the directories involved.)
• Different versions of the tool set should be able to coexist.  (This requirement comes about because it is common in embedded software developments to "freeze" the set of tools used to build a product.  All versions of the tool set can be installed concurrently and will run separately without interfering with each other.)
• All executables should be standalone (no .DLL or other dependencies), and it should be possible to move the executables to other locations or other computers.  (Embedded software developers often copy utilities from machine to machine or change their location.  Additionally, the license allows this with no restrictions.)

The following screen snapshots illustrate the type of functionality found in the Windows® tool set.

The installation is a normal InstallShield Express installation.

The installation is essentially only a file copy.  It also installs shortcuts in the Start menu and on the desktop, as shown below.

The utilities that are installed fall into a few different categories.  The first category is scripting tools, such as EsrgConsole.  EsrgConsole has two essential applications:

• It can be used as a scripting tool for embedded product builds.
• It can be used as a standalone workbench to perform operations or calculate results useful in embedded system development.

The use of EsrgConsole as a graphical scripting tool is not illustrated on this web page, but the snapshot below shows EsrgConsole being used to find the best rational approximation to p  with numerator and denominator not exceeding 16 bits.

The second category of utility in the Windows® tool set is graphical (GUI) utilities.  For example, a graphical CRC-32/MD-5 utility is provided (screen snapshot below).

The third category of utility in the Windows® tool set is console-mode (DOS box) utilities.  These are not illustrated with screen snapshots.  These are helpful utilities to signature files, calculate large integer and number theory results, etc.  The console-mode utilities do not have shortcuts installed in the Start menu or on the desktop, but they are documented in the book (which is also included as a .PDF file in the ESRG Windows® Tool Set).

This web page is maintained by David T. Ashley.
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