scratch_space.h

/**
 * The Arduino, unlike C/C++ on a regular computer with gigabytes of RAM, has very little memory.
 * We have to be very careful with variables that are declared inside the functions as they are 
 * created in a memory region called the stack. The stack has just a few bytes of space on the Arduino
 * if you declare large strings inside functions, they can easily exceed the capacity of the stack
 * and mess up your programs. 
 * We circumvent this by declaring a few global buffers as  kitchen counters where we can 
 * slice and dice our strings. These strings are mostly used to control the display or handle
 * the input and output from the USB port. We must keep a count of the bytes used while reading
 * the serial port as we can easily run out of buffer space. This is done in the serial_in_count variable.
 */

extern char c[30], b[128];