I learnt programming during my studies, but now I have to do some embedded SW on a PowerPC. This is very specific and there are a lot of things that I never learnt at school or in programming books. How to manage memory, what is a heap, manage the stack, define memory sections, bootloader, RTOS... do you know a good book that cover these kind of things?
No matter what you do, teaching yourself all that stuff will take months at least. It's not something you master in a weekend.<p>The best people in that area probably have a long history with (embedded) programming and started when computers were a lot simpler.<p>So, this might sounds as really crazy advice, but I think it could help lot: find an Apple ][ on eBay and some old Apple ][ programming books. Then start hacking on some assembly code to understand the things you describe above.<p>Another option would be to buy some more modern (:-) development boards for CPUs like the PPC or ARM. Some are very well documented and come with tutorials.<p>The Apple ][ approach is more fun IMO and you will learn a LOT from it :-)<p>S.
Jack Gannsle's books:
<a href="http://www.ganssle.com/book.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.ganssle.com/book.htm</a> or check Amazon. Also has articles at his site which might interest you.<p>Also articles at embedded.com