On 2009-09-29, Hendrik van Rooyen <hend...@microcorp.co.za> wrote: > On Monday, 28 September 2009 16:44:48 Grant Edwards wrote: > >> $10 is pretty expensive for a lot of applications. I bet that >> processor also uses a lot of power and takes up a lot of board >> space. If you've only got $2-$3 in the money budget, 200uA at >> 1.8V in the power budget, and 6mm X 6mm of board-space, your >> choices are limited. >> >> Besides If you can get by with 256 or 512 bytes of RAM, why pay >> 4X the price for a 1K part? >> >> Besides which, the 8032 instruction set and development tools >> are icky compared to something like an MSP430 or an AVR. ;) >> >> [The 8032 is still head and shoulders above the 8-bit PIC >> family.] > > I am biased. > I like the 8031 family. > I have written pre-emptive multitasking systems for it, > as well as state-machine round robin systems. > In assembler. > Who needs tools if you have a half decent macro assembler?
Assembler macros are indeed a lost art. Back in the day, I remember seeing some pretty impressive macro libraries layered 2-3 deep. I've done assember macros as recently as about 2-3 years go because it was the easiest way to auto-magically generate lookup tables for use by C programs (macro assemblers always have a "repeat" directive, and cpp doesn't). > The 803x bit handling is, in my arrogant opinion, still the > best of any processor. - jump if bit set then clear as an > atomic instruction rocks. The bit-addressing mode was (and still is) cool. However, the stack implementation hurts pretty badly now that memory is cheap. I shouldn't criticize the 8051. I remember switching from the 8048 to the 8051 (8751 actually, at about $300 each) and thinking it was wonderful. [Anybody who remembers fighting with the 8048 page boundaries knows what I mean.] >:-) > > Where do you get such nice projects to work on? Just lucky. :) -- Grant -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
