DEV-12887 Datasheet, PDF (5/40 Pages) SparkFun Electronics – Electric Imp Breakout Hookup Guide

and secure. There are certainly pros and cons to this “always online”
approach (though you can write and save every program locally, and
upload it when you’re ready). Still, it seems like a good solution for this type
of platform.
Code in the IDE is divided into two halves: the imp device, and the agent.
Code in the device half is code that actually runs on your imp. The agent is
a process living on Electric Imp’s cloud server. It can communicate with
both your imp, and the outside Internet world. We’ll dig further into the
differences between these two components later.
The Language: Squirrel
Firmware for the imp is written in a language called Squirrel. Squirrel is an
object oriented language similar to Javascript, but unlike most embedded
system programming languages we’ve encountered (namely Arduino).
Entering imp development from the world of Arduino may be somewhat
jarring. There are no loop() or setup() functions, instead most actions
are event or timer-driven.
There are tons of great examples on Electric Imp’s wiki page, and if you're
truly interested in learning Squirrel, check out the Squirrel homepage.
There’s also the Electric Imp API to familiarize yourself with. These are
functions and libraries used to perform actions with the imp’s GPIO pins
and other hardware functionality.
About the Breakout
In order to use an imp, two pieces of hardware are required: the imp card
and the impee. An impee is the piece of hardware that houses the imp.
Aside from having a standard SD socket for the imp to slide into, the impee
also needs to provide power to the imp, and do something with the imp’s
I/O pins. Our impee for this tutorial is as simple as it gets…a breakout
board.
Page 5 of 40