diff --git a/platform/esb/doc/esb.txt b/platform/esb/doc/esb.txt
index 4614dab58..d1715303e 100644
--- a/platform/esb/doc/esb.txt
+++ b/platform/esb/doc/esb.txt
@@ -19,6 +19,140 @@ sender/receiver, vibration/tilt, microphone, temperature).
 The Contiki/ESB port contains drivers for most of the sensors. The
 drivers were mostly adapted from sources from FU Berlin.
 
+\section esb-getting-started Getting started with Contiki for the ESB platform
+
+The ESB is equipped with an MSP430 microcontroller. The first step to
+getting started with Contiki for the ESB is to install the development
+tools for compiling Contiki for the MSP430.
+
+Windows users, see \ref esb-win-setup. FreeBSD users, see \ref esb-freebsd-setup
+
+\section esb-win-setup Setting up the Windows environment
+
+This is a brief introduction to Contik/ESB programming under Windows
+using cygwin and some other free software tools.
+
+\subsection winintro-installing Installing the development environment
+
+\subsubsection winintro-installing-cygwin Installing Cygwin 
+
+The first "need to have" software is the cygwin environment that can
+be found at http://www.cygwin.com. Cygwin is a Linux-like environment
+for Windows. Click on the icon "Install Cygwin Now" to the right to
+get the installation started.
+
+Choose "Install from Internet" and then specify where you want to
+install cygwin (recommended installation path:
+<tt>C:\\cygwin</tt>). Continue with the installation until you are
+asked to select packages. Most packages can be left as "Default" but
+there is one package that are not installed by default. Install the
+following package by clicking at "Default" until it changes to
+"Install":
+
+- Devel - contains things for developers (make, etc).
+
+<img src="img/esb/cygwin6b.jpg" align="center">
+
+When cygwin is installed there should be a cygwin icon that starts
+up a cygwin bash when clicked on. Whenever it is time to compile and
+send programs to the ESB nodes it will be done from a cygwin shell.
+
+\subsubsection winintro-installing-editor C programming editor
+
+If you do not already have a nice programming editor it is a good
+idea to download and install one. The Crimson editor is a nice
+windows based editor that is both easy to get started with and
+fairly powerful.
+
+Crimson Editor can be found at:
+http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
+
+The editor is useful both when editing C programs and when
+modifying scripts and configuration files.
+
+\subsubsection winintro-installing-compiler MSP430 Compiler and tools
+
+A compiler is needed to compile the programs to the MSP430
+microprocessor that is used on the ESB sensor nodes. Download and
+install the GCC toolchain for MSP430 (recommended installation path:
+C:\\MSP430\\).
+
+The GCC toolchain for MSP430 can be found at:
+http://sourceforge.net/projects/mspgcc/
+
+When the above software is installed you also need to set-up the
+PATH so that all of the necessary tools can be reached. In cygwin
+this is done by the following line (given that you have installed
+at recommended locations):
+
+<tt>
+export PATH=\$PATH:/cygdrive/c/MSP430/mspgcc/bin
+</tt>
+
+This line can also be added to the .profile startup file in your cygwin
+home directory
+(<tt>C:\\cygwin\\home\\\<YOUR USERNAME\>\\.profile</tt>).
+
+If your home directory is located elsewhere you can find it by
+starting cygwin and running \c cd followed by \c pwd.
+
+\subsubsection winintro-installing-contiki The Contiki operating system, including examples
+
+When programming the ESB sensor nodes it is very useful to have an
+operating system that takes care of some of the low-level tasks and
+also gives you as a programmer APIs for things like events, hardware
+and networking.  We will use the Contiki operating system developed by
+Adam Dunkels, SICS, which is very well suited when programming small
+embedded systems.
+
+The Contiki OS can be found at:
+http://www.sics.se/~adam/contiki/
+
+Unzip the Contiki OS at (for example) C:\\
+and you will get the following directories among others:
+
+- contiki-2.x/core - the contiki operating system
+- contiki-2.x/platform/esb - the contiki operating system drivers, etc for the ESB
+- contiki-2.x/platform/esb/apps/ - example applications for the ESB
+
+\subsection winintro-testing Testing the tools
+
+Now everything necessary to start developing Contiki-based sensor net
+applications should be installed. Start cygwin and change to the
+directory <tt>contiki-2.x/platform/esb/</tt>. Then call <tt>make
+beeper.co</tt>.
+
+If you get an error about multiple cygwin dlls when compiling, you
+need to delete <tt>cygwin1.dll</tt> from the MSP430 GCC toolchain
+(<tt>C:\\MSP430\\bin\\cygwin1.dll</tt>).
+
+Connect a node and turn it on. Upload the test application by calling
+<tt>make beeper.u</tt>.
+
+\subsubsection winintro-testing-development Development tools
+
+- <tt>make \<SPEC\></tt> will compile and make a executable file ready
+for sending to the ESB nodes. Depending on the \c SPEC it might even
+startup the application that sends the executable to the
+node. Typically you would write things like <tt>"make beeper.u"</tt>
+to get the file <tt>beeper.c</tt> compiled, linked and sent out to the
+ESB node
+
+\subsubsection winintro-testing-shell Some basic shell commands
+
+- <tt> cd \<DIR\></tt> change to a specified directory (same as in DOS)
+- <tt> pwd \<DIR\></tt> shows your current directory
+- <tt> ls</tt> list the directory
+- <tt> mkdir \<DIR\></tt> creates a new directory
+- <tt> cp \<SRC\> \<DEST\></tt> copies a file
+
+\section esb-freebsd-setup Setting up the FreeBSD environment
+
+Download the msp430-gcc, msp430-binutils, and
+msp430-libc packages from
+http://www.sics.se/~adam/contiki/freebsd-packages/. Install the
+packages (as root) with <tt>pkg_add</tt>. 
+
 @{
 
 */