Lightning Talking at RustConf 2026

My RustConf 2026 lightning talk was accepted! The title:

Using the Rust standard library on high-end MCUs

I hope the organizers don't mind, but I don't have a working standard library port just yet. Forcing myself to give a talk is the activation energy I needed to get started, even if that talk is just 5 minutes long.

I know this is possible. The Espressif folks have standard library support for ESP32 parts, built on FreeRTOS. There's also a port using NuttX, which might support my favorite high-end MCUs: the i.MX RT series.

So what am I doing differently? I'd like to try with a different RTOS, specifically ThreadX. I haven't seen any standard library ports based on ThreadX, so maybe I'll be the first one. I already have a ThreadX bindings package, along with "safer" Rust bindings in an awfully-named package called fusible. Targeting i.MX RT MCUs and building on the imxrt-rs project gives me another foundation.

I want to support, at a minimum, threading and networking in a standard library port. Those capabilities, plus RTOS-aware drivers for other i.MX RT peripherals, should be enough to explore more complex applications.

Why do this? Mostly for fun! But, I'm also curious if having the standard library eases embedded software development, or if the overhead makes it impractical.

I'll try to post semi-regular updates on this site. I hope to see you in Montreal, or that you virtually attend!