Looking for Microcontroller Recommendations
in [Design]
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From: Falk Willberg on 15 Jan 2010 05:43 Joel Koltner schrieb: > "Falk Willberg" <Faweglassenlk(a)falk-willberg.de> wrote in message > news:hio3ac$hll$1(a)news2.open-news-network.org... >> PS: An almost free AVR-Development board is described here: >> http://home.arcor.de/wehrsdorf/Oled-Display-Recycling.html > > Nice idea, I like it! Pharmaceutical company give them away including a few test strips. The test strips are 50 Eurocent to 1 EUR each. Some people sell the devices on ebay: 360224657755 Falk
From: John Larkin on 15 Jan 2010 06:35 On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:38:45 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >On a sunny day (Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:39:11 -0800) it happened John Larkin ><jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in ><777vk5tsp8r9616jnjcoaemmve2tc9j1nb(a)4ax.com>: > >>On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:22:56 -0600, "RogerN" <regor(a)midwest.net> >>wrote: >> >>> >>>Years back I played some with PIC microcontrollers but I've heard that >>>manufacturers are making better microcontrollers for less money. >>> >>>Not looking for professional ICE or anything but maybe something competitive >>>with Microchips in circuit programmer/debugger. I was considering buying >>>Microchips ICD3 with PICDEM 2 board for $230, but thought maybe something >>>would be a better choice. I'm considering Atmels line but wanted some input >>>on others worth checking into. >>> >>>Any recommendations on favorite microcontrollers that I can get up an >>>running with for a reasonable amount of dollars? >>> >>>Thanks! >>> >>>RogerN >>> >> >>The future seems to be the ARM architecture. >> >>John > >I bought a book on ARM in the eighties? I was also the future then ;-) >But somehow x86 grabbed it. x86 has - for now - won on the desktop, but there are around 100 embedded uPs for every PC, and the embedded chips aren't x86. Some netbooks are ARM+Linux, and that may be an increasing trend. There's no justification for putting a hundred dollars (or more) worth of power-hogging x86 CPU into a web browser or a cell phone. Some of the low-end ARM chips cost well under a dollar now, and there is some awesome stuff for $5 or so. I'm sorta hoping that Intel will be the next DEC, except that I miss DEC. John
From: Jan Panteltje on 15 Jan 2010 08:12 On a sunny day (Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:35:11 -0800) it happened John Larkin <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in <n9k0l59pcncno9800o9c9h6n6ee9cnoh4s(a)4ax.com>: >>>The future seems to be the ARM architecture. >>> >>>John >> >>I bought a book on ARM in the eighties? I was also the future then ;-) >>But somehow x86 grabbed it. > >x86 has - for now - won on the desktop, but there are around 100 >embedded uPs for every PC, and the embedded chips aren't x86. Some >netbooks are ARM+Linux, and that may be an increasing trend. > >There's no justification for putting a hundred dollars (or more) worth >of power-hogging x86 CPU into a web browser or a cell phone. Some of >the low-end ARM chips cost well under a dollar now, and there is some >awesome stuff for $5 or so. > >I'm sorta hoping that Intel will be the next DEC, except that I miss >DEC. > >John I dunno, the ARM netbooks had a lot of trouble few month ago running some applications (in Linux), I think some applications still use extensive asm, a simple example present on all those netbooks is the mpeg2 / H264 / mpeg4 ... long list... drivers. That would all have to be re-written for 'RISC' architecture is asm, and as you probably know x86 has many many special instructions specifically for multimedia, Let's look at an old one here: # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 6 model : 3 model name : AMD Duron(tm) processor stepping : 1 cpu MHz : 959.526 cache size : 64 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 1 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow bogomips : 1920.77 clflush size : 32 So, mmx, 3dnow, give the x86 an incredible speed advantage over ARM, as ARM will have to to a zillion asm instructions for every high level x86 instruction. It is possible (I did not keep up after that book in the eighties) that ARM also added some special multimedia capabilities, but then again there is the overhead of re-encoding. So I do not expect ARM to make big inroads into personal computing and especially multimedia soon. Why do you think Apple left their old architecture for ix86? Multimedia likely! Then there is that power issue you mention, sure, but my last encounter with an ARM was on the SkyStar1 PCI satellite receiver card, and that was a power hog so bad it needed an extra fan, and I finally was glad to get rid of it, and replace it by a new card that uses the PC's processor only.... I am not sure if it was the ARM that got so hot or the TI 7010 chip in retrospect, but for me it associated ARM with power hog. I know about the latest netbooks with ARM appearing on the various exhibitions, but why bother? As I wrote in an other post, for embedded, you can use PIC, and then the next step up is a small motherboard (and they come very small these days) with a x86, maybe Intel Atom or something along that line, AMD second source almost. readily available, all software almost or completely for free, portability, asm or C, or even your Power Basic. Unless your PowerBasic is written in C without inline asm, will it appear on ARM? Well maybe it already does, seems a lot of extra work for no gain. What is a Watt? That is even if it saves a Watt or 2, what is the total power consumption of the thing you are making? If you are controlling a 700 kV HV cross ocean DC line with 10GW power? I write that because I just did read the 700kV line here has been operational for some time, and I did not know about it! And now they are planning more all over Europe to make it possible to distribute wind power and maybe solar power so there is always some power, and always there is some wind somewhere.... but no sun at night, solar eclipses... mm let's have nuclear power please. Drifting of topic, what was the topic? :-)
From: MooseFET on 15 Jan 2010 09:47 On Jan 15, 3:35 am, John Larkin <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:38:45 GMT, Jan Panteltje > > > > <pNaonStpealm...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > >On a sunny day (Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:39:11 -0800) it happened John Larkin > ><jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in > ><777vk5tsp8r9616jnjcoaemmve2tc9j...(a)4ax.com>: > > >>On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:22:56 -0600, "RogerN" <re...(a)midwest.net> > >>wrote: > > >>>Years back I played some with PIC microcontrollers but I've heard that > >>>manufacturers are making better microcontrollers for less money. > > >>>Not looking for professional ICE or anything but maybe something competitive > >>>with Microchips in circuit programmer/debugger. I was considering buying > >>>Microchips ICD3 with PICDEM 2 board for $230, but thought maybe something > >>>would be a better choice. I'm considering Atmels line but wanted some input > >>>on others worth checking into. > > >>>Any recommendations on favorite microcontrollers that I can get up an > >>>running with for a reasonable amount of dollars? > > >>>Thanks! > > >>>RogerN > > >>The future seems to be the ARM architecture. > > >>John > > >I bought a book on ARM in the eighties? I was also the future then ;-) > >But somehow x86 grabbed it. > > x86 has - for now - won on the desktop, but there are around 100 > embedded uPs for every PC, and the embedded chips aren't x86. Some > netbooks are ARM+Linux, and that may be an increasing trend. > > There's no justification for putting a hundred dollars (or more) worth > of power-hogging x86 CPU into a web browser or a cell phone. Some of > the low-end ARM chips cost well under a dollar now, and there is some > awesome stuff for $5 or so. > > I'm sorta hoping that Intel will be the next DEC, except that I miss > DEC. As I have pointed out before the 8051 in fact out performed the 8088 on many operations. A simple 32 bit Arm like processor would be just about the ideal processor for viewing web pages and working on documents etc. It can address enough memory and fling bytes around efficiently. For viewing a video a little hardware help could make it ok for that job. When something like LTspice is being run, a little more is needed: Programs like LTspice need to be able to do long floating point operations and move the floats to and from memory quickly. For this it seems that having a second processor that does this would be the way to go. The user interface of the program could run on the integer machine. When the floats are needed, the second machine gets powered up and handed the problem. It would mean that the power consumption would shift up and down. The $100 lap top that is being shipped to 3rd world countries does this sort of thing only more so. Most of the time, it is running just a small microcontroller. When the user does something that needs to be responded to, the CPU chip gets powered up just for as long as it takes.
From: Jon Kirwan on 15 Jan 2010 14:38
On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:43:22 +0100, Falk Willberg <Faweglassenlk(a)falk-willberg.de> wrote: >Joel Koltner schrieb: >> "Falk Willberg" <Faweglassenlk(a)falk-willberg.de> wrote in message >> news:hio3ac$hll$1(a)news2.open-news-network.org... >>> PS: An almost free AVR-Development board is described here: >>> http://home.arcor.de/wehrsdorf/Oled-Display-Recycling.html >> >> Nice idea, I like it! > >Pharmaceutical company give them away including a few test strips. The >test strips are 50 Eurocent to 1 EUR each. > >Some people sell the devices on ebay: 360224657755 > >Falk In the US, ebay folks seem to be asking a fair amount more than that -- shipping probably adding still more profit. Too bad. Jon |