Hi,
I'm looking for advice on the best way to publish some new software and a companion book, and hope this is the right forum to ask.
The book is meant to be instructive but conversational, expecting readers to pay attention and to do some thinking of their own. Think of some popular mathematics books -- that's the feel I was trying for.
The software is an Arduino Sketch, but is only useful on an Arduino UNO. It is called ArdEx (Arduino Explorer), and equips the user with an interactive assembly language interpreter. The language itself is a slightly changed TI MSP430 assembly language rather than the UNO's Atmega 328/P. The key thing is that all the Atmega's hardware registers are accessible in their own space. This means ArdEx gives you interactive access to the real hardware -- LED, I2C, SPI, Timers, etc.
To keep ArdEx as simple as possible, it only allows a total of 256 program steps. And RAM is even more restricted. So this isn't an environment for serious programming. I believe it is an environment for serious learning and that, with suitable material, it could be useful from 8th grade (14 year olds) to undergraduate computing courses.
I will attach the first ten pages of the book which explains how I came to write it and includes the table of contents. It also has a first program to blink an LED which should give you an idea of what I mean by an interactive assembly language. There are a few things marked "TODO", where I haven't nailed down installation/packaging details for using ArdEx from Windows or Mac, etc.
So how should I go about publishing this? My key objective is that as many people as possible will get the educational benefit. My thinking is that, rather than rushing to open it all out to the wider world, it would be better to work with a number of motivated reasonably technical teachers to see which parts work and which parts need more work. The book is there to teach the teachers, and they would then teach their students from what they have learnt.
But maybe someone here will have a better suggestion for how I should proceed.
I am in Australia, in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. If I seem slow to respond, allow for time zone differences.
Have fun,
Robert.
ardexintro.pdf (179 KB)