I had success programming Chinese clones of the STM32F103C8T6 aka Blue Pill by just changing the device signature the programmer looks for via a flag in openocd. Fortunately these blue pill clones behave identically (so far, in my experience) to the real thing and are abundant and cheap on eBay so might be a good option for those who still want to work with a STM32 chip.
Yeah I actually couldn't find any legitimate blue pills, I made this project using a clone blue pill which fortunately for the most part behaves exactly like a real one.
I appreciate that! I'll admit I was hesitant to publish the blog series at first because I was embarrassed by how much my limited knowledge influenced my design decisions, but I'm glad to hear it might make embedded development seem a little less intimidating. I'll definitely consider turning it into a YouTube series when I get the time.
Thank you! Yeah hardware is tricky (and I still have so much to learn) but there's something really satisfying about holding a thing you designed in your hands that pure software just doesn't quite give.