TI MSP430

We buy direct in both cases, and we only spec in RoHS-compliant parts.

Right. But these are distribution prices. They don't reflect the direct pricing at all. Clearly TI's prices to distris are closer to the break-even edge than Atmel's, so neither TI nor the distri have much room to discount deeply on quantity.

Reply to
larwe
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IIRC, I was comparing ATmega6450 and ATmega1280 with 430F148 and 149.

The AVR parts were quite a bit more expensive ($2-$3 more).

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  O.K.! Speak with a
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Reply to
Grant Edwards

As long as you close your eyes and force yourself not to look at the code a compiler has to generate for pointer-intensive stuff, or for 16-32bit math, or for anything involving the stack pointer. It's _ugly_. Due to the mostly 1-cycle execution in the AVR, it's not really a lot slower, but it hurts my eyes when I look at it. It also requires 25-50% more code space than the '430 for the functions I've benchmarked.

The PIC is truly crap.

I wouldn't consider the AVR to be C-friendly. It's not as hostile as the 8051, but it's far from friendly.

For instance, consider the contortions the compiler has to go through to reserve space on the stack for auto variables. IIRC, it has to disable interrupts while it does multiple 8-bit I/O operations because the stack pointer isn't directly accessible as a register.

The dearth of registers that can be used as pointers is also rather C-hostile.

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Reply to
Grant Edwards

Oh, AVR ain't so bad. Most of the irritations stem from the different handling of r16-r31 and the fact that X,Y,Z are (a) different from one another, and (b) the only 16-bit regs. If they had been able to implement it such that every register was part of a register pair (and every register pair able to act as a pointer), it would have been much better.

But that's where a 16-bit instruction word (and not being a slave to the RISC idea of one word per instruction) comes in handy.

There are ways around this, e.g. using a separate stack implemented in software.

Well, yes - I didn't say it was perfect.

Reply to
larwe

The fact that TI is willing to make their microcontrollers available at reasonable prices in small volumes indicates their interest in dealing with small companies. This ties in with the low cost development tools and free seminars. While this policy may not seem important to large companies, it is reason to take notice by those of us in the low-volume high value-added segment.

Reply to
Gary Reichlinger

It's more or less an established fact that Atmel is not very interested in doing business with small accounts. Samples, support, low prices are just unavailable for anyone smaller than .

I threw the price fact into the mix because some of us moonlight at day jobs where we work on high-volume consumer junk. Of course our real lives in our home labs are not the same, but it's always good to have more data points.

Reply to
larwe

... then it might be prudent to not mention that Atmel's price is 1/4 that of an equivalent part. Someone is likely to get their wrist slapped, and your price might vaporise... :)

IME uC normally follow a 'fairly well behaved' price curve, and where they diverge greatly, be wary of the sustainability of that price....

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

Do you guys belong to AARP?

Reply to
Gary Reichlinger

At the time I was coming from the 68K world, and the MSP430 architecture appealed to me. I was also using it as a RTC running off a 40KHz xtal when the rest of the instrument was asleep. One spec was that the system had to draw less than 100uA in sleep mode. That meant paying very careful attention to the power supply and finding an RTC/IO controller that would run on very low current.

I also made good use of the MSP430 12-bit ADC for some auxilliary sensors that were not connected to the 16-Bit ADC.

Been there and done that with the PICs. Never again. (I'm both busy enough and close enough to retirement that I would turn down jobs where using a PIC was part of the requirement.)

I don't think I ever used more than 1/4 the code space of the MSP430F149. I did use a lot of the RAM, though. The MSP is the interface to a data flash chip which sent and received data in 1056-byte blocks. It was much easier to have the full block buffered on the MSP and sent to the ARM as required. A chip with less than 2K RAM would have required a more complex approach.

I don't think I've ever worked on an oceanographic project that sold more than 2000 units. The oceanographic instrument market just isn't that large. However, it is the right market for a self-taught embedded systems developer with an MS in chemical oceanography. I've tried Apple II peripherals and software and Macintosh software (back in the

80's----grey beard is itching like mad now!!!) but wasn't nearly as happy in that field.

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

That is my take as well, which is why I think a lot of people also liked 68xxx, 6809, H8 and a few others.

At least you did not say 11/34 or 11/60! Says he who would prefer 11/05 or

11/10 front panel from memories of having a couple under his bench in cut down racks as test machines, linked to the departments 11/45 later 11/70 for code writing and download the code from. Had some nice inhouse steps then.

Anyway 11/05 front panel might be easier to draw on a smaller chip :-^

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Reply to
Paul Carpenter

Not yet, but the curmudgeonliness flux density is high in the engineering field, so it's forgivable that you would ask the question :)

Reply to
larwe

Doubt it. Atmel wants our business. TI is happy enough to have our business, but not actively seeking to grow it.

Reply to
larwe

What we really need is a PDP-8 on a chip.

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Reply to
CBFalconer

Actually, Lewin appears to be working on something older. I think his ulterior motive, though, is to give those "curmudgeons" here something to go waste their time on so that his competition dwindles away and he's in a better position towards his goal of world domination. ;)

Jon

P.S. Although I worked on PDP-8s, recall the 14" drive patters, the DecTapes, and kicking an 8k drum memory to get it working again, I don't really like the instruction set that much today. Still have my pdp-8 manuals around, though. And the little nifty instruction card.

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

I first encountered one before getting into computers at all, when on a visit to Berkeley circa 1963 I found an old acquaintance (forget his name, but a physicist from AECL, Chalk River) had acquired one. It was a marvel of compactness - occupied only one relay rack, together with the free standing ASR33. Didn't even require conditioned power lines, IIRC.

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Reply to
CBFalconer

Funny. When I looked at a PIC, my first reaction was that "it was just like a PDP-8".

Reply to
Jim Stewart

Personally, no. But I could join if I wanted. (:

Reply to
Jim Stewart

Rather not - but some PIC's are pretty close with all the built-in limitations of a PDP-8.

My vote to PDP-11.

Been there - used both, a couple of years ago.

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Reply to
Tauno Voipio

Watch your mouth there, you young whippersnapper! We do not mention the "O" word in polite company.

Reply to
Everett M. Greene

"He who does not study is doomed to repeat it." (couldn't track down the author).

Intersil 6100.

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

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