Is it worth making an 8031/32 board?

For that price I think you could. And remember -- this is coming from someone who thinks the best thing to do with an 8051 is strip the pins off and use it for a shim.

...

This kind of boards may be attractive for low end robotics projects, etc. Check what feedback you get from posting in comp.robotics.misc and comp.home.automation

For example look at this:

$250 for the assembled unit? No way, not a chance.

-Isaac

Hello Tim,

With that much RAM and flash, probably. Lewin, just keep in mind "the competition", mostly in the form of PIC, AVR, MSP and other header boards. The last ones I bought where $12.95 IIRC and that was with a MSP430F1232. Not nearly as much RAM but you get a 16bit engine and excellent micropower behavior.

Hey, c'mon, at least the 8051 family is multi-sourced. Which other uC family can match that? BIG incentive.

My '51 designs are the ones that seem to be cranking forever. The first one dating back to 1994 is still in full production and there is no end in sight. For some other uCs you wouldn't even know whether purchasing can get them for that long. My design goal is usually 10+ years, preferably 20 years.

Heck, even our pellet stove controller contains a Winbond 8051. I just had to look, of course :-)

Regards, Joerg

That's just the reason that I've reluctantly decided to consider it as an alternative. I have the usually fortunate habit of visualizing the assembly code that's behind every line of C or C++ I write. When I'm writing for an 8051 it's painful to consider.

snip

"I have the usually fortunate habit of visualizing the assembly code that's behind every line of C or C++ I write"

Ignorance is bliss.

I'm just happy playing with the somewhat clunky Raisonance

martin

Such a PCB still has education merit, and the price is appx right.

Much above that, and you bump into the Eval Board prices :

eg Eval Boards from Silabs are ~$50, with F064 demo ~$25, and their tool-stick is $10. Complete Eval sytems are ~$99 These all have the on-chip debug.

The new Eval system from Ramtron is ~$99, for PCB/JTAG Debug/cable That PCB has a TQFP64 40 Mips VRS51L2070, 2xDB9 UART, 8 LEDS,

Atmel and Winbond also have on-chip debug 89C51 variants comming.

-jg

If you are able to make it software compatible with the MCS BASIC-52 interpreter for the 8051 series, that might also be very nice. Intel used to give away the User's Manual (I have one of them) and Chapter

(I also have a hundred 40-pin DIP 80C32s with piggyback POR circuits soldered to each one but leaving them free to socket up okay, individually checked and verified, sitting in a box -- from many years ago.)

Jon

Mostly for the RAM (as much as possible). Most single chip micros tend to have much more flash than ram. Sometimes we have to overpaid the flash for the ram. I guess flash is cheaper to make, but big number on flash is a good selling point.

I've got an order of magnitude more chips than that, but they are an assortment. They're left over from a product line that got canned a long time ago, and someone found them in a cupboard. The bit that puzzles me is that they're wildly different in performance specs; from a 25MHz DS80C320 to an 8MHz Signetics 80C32.

I'm aware of it - that's why I'm asking the question. At the moment, I have Gerbers lurking on a backup drive somewhere, and boxes of chips sitting under my desk, and I'm mulling if a marriage of the two is worthwhile. I, personally, would probably not want such a board. Basically I'm wondering if I should toss (or, more likely, donate) these chips, or build something around them. If I didn't have so many, I'd just donate them.

The catch is that in my most recent book, I mention [as an aside] the canonical simplest 8051 play-about-with-it circuit, which is more or less the same circuit on my little board. So there might be a ready-made market :)

Thanks, I'll try a crosspost.

Saying something sucks less than a PIC isn't saying much. ;)

I compiled some C code for PIC, AVR, and MSP430 just to compare code size and excecution time for some benchmark routines. The PIC was amazingly bad. Code size was 2X-3X the MSP430. Execution time was almost as bad.

Interesting point. I am in a similar position. I have a few tubes of Z8 devices mask ROM types containing Tiny Basic. I was thinking of making a simple development board for these or should I just sell the chips on eBay?

Ian

Since I am also "the sales person" at my company, I tend to look at most things from a marketing perspective. Does your company deal with similar products ? Is this something your customer base would be interested in ? Can you add this item to your catalog/product list and get it in front of people that might want it ? Are there any potential customers out there that would buy in quantity ?

For my company, the answer to all of the above would be no. You may be more patient than me (in fact, most people are), but this looks like the sort of thing that maybe a student would buy one of, if you answered a few of his emails and or phone calls. That's great if that sort of thing gives you the warm fuzzes, but not so great if it causes you to miss a deadline with a paying customer.

Even if every person that posts to this news group bought one ( which ain't gonna happen), would you sell enough to break even ?

-Hershel

Beware the Hobby-Product.....

Chris

Id like a few if you plan on tossing them out or donating them. I am even sure youd get something if you put them up on ebay.

Hello Lewin,

While there are many modern uC that are clearly better, a lot of designers have to design around the 8051 architecture and for good reason (because they aren't single-sourced). So there should be lots of folks who have to learn about it. It might not be easy to find and address that market though.

Regards, Joerg

tecel sells bare boards for about 12 bucks.. with chips for 25.. they even write to EEPROMS on board.

Not that its a bad idea, just keep in mind how cheap some others boards are.