I am not a networking specialist. If you are an expert in this area, this posting will be teaching a grandmother to suck eggs (strange expression – I wonder what it actually means). Obviously, over years of working with embedded systems, I have learned quite a lot about protocols, so learning about a new one is not starting from scratch. For many, networking begins and ends with TCP/IP. However, there are lots of other Internet protocols – FTP, UDP and HTTP, for example. There are also other kinds of connectivity that may or may not be thought of as networking – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB, for example.

It was while studying the operation of the last of these, USB, that I came across a technique that was familiar in form, but unfamiliar in application: bit stuffing … (more…)