[time-nuts] favorite microcontroller module?
Robert Vassar
rvassar at rob-vassar.com
Wed Feb 20 14:38:00 EST 2008
On Feb 20, 2008, at 10:41 AM, Chuck Harris wrote:
> Robert Vassar wrote:
>
>> I regard PIC chips as something to be avoided. Horrible little
>> architecture that should have died back in the 70's. It gained a
>> foothold with hobbyists due to the ease with which they can be
>> programmed.
>
> Wow! I guess I should stop using them.
Not at all. Embedded products generally have higher quality needs
than general purpose computing as we've come to know it today. Let's
face it, when a traffic light controller or a military device wanders
off the end of a null pointer people die. You're a pro, you
understand these problems. Engineering is compromise. Use the tools
you feel comfortable with that allow you to do your job.
As a software professional that plays with uC's for fun, not work,
I'm going to choose something that doesn't use oddball word lengths,
and has a nice orthogonal instruction set with a rich set of
addressing modes. I learned the '51 back in high school 20+ years
ago. If someone else was going to pick up a uC arch from scratch for
hobby purposes, I would probably recommend the AVR.
>
> And I assume they have them in 6 or 8 pin surface mount with 4 or 5
> ADC
> channels, and a built in clock oscillator that has a better than
> 1% accuracy over the full military/industrial temperature range?
SiLabs makes some very remarkable derivatives, which I've not had the
pleasure to play with. I'm not sure they get down to the 6 or 8 pin
point.
>
> Oh, and I forgot, a uart on every pin?
Why on earth? No... I don't want to know. :-)
>
> PIC's are the greatest little problem solvers in existence.
>
s/PIC\'s/uC\'s/ and we agree....
>
>>
>> and have an arch better suited to C.
>
> Who cares?
Anyone trying to make a C compiler for the chip? Anyone concerned
about the quality of the compiler, mixed language use ala C with
assembly, or code portability?
>
> -Chuck Harris, Not a hobbyist!
>
>
I have to confess, I'm rather surprised at your passion for the PIC.
But hey... I spend all day working on Solaris and Linux, and use a
Mac everywhere else just to be 100% Microsoft free. So while I'm
surprised, I can understand it.
:-)
Cheers,
Rob , "software engineer", but uC hobbyist...
More information about the time-nuts
mailing list