W65C02S, Z80, 80C31 or other legacy processor?

To bump this again, with recent news, since this is an interesting topic.

I'd put a $3-$5 ceiling on the processor price, and favour smaller package as that lowers the PC price. I'd also target modern devices, not EOL branches. You want this to generate a 'buzz', and technical input, as well as be easy to use.

This news moves the goal-posts, as you get a LOT of RAM (128K), and FLASH.(128K..364K) and a 'free' high speed USB - for under $5 Package is a tad large, but it is visible - a teaching plus :)

[Atmel:Samples of the AT32UC3A3 are available now. The devices are priced at US$4.41 for 10k units. The ATEVK1104 development kit is available now. The kit is priced for US$169.]

And this posting by Rich, looked very relevant for the SW side :

[ "StickOS" includes an editor, transparent line-by-line BASIC compiler, interactive debugger, performance profiler, and flash filesystem. here: ] - lists Coldfire & PIC32, so would need a AVR32 port.

The EVK1104 would be a good porting target ?

-jg

I will believe the samples from Atmel when I have them in my hands! Long story. But that's the short of it. They may be sampling, but I expect bigger customers (being a consultant puts me at the bottom of the list) to see them long, long before I would.

That's the price of a sample, then.

I am very interested in what he wrote. I think he's an excellent talent and I expect to spend a little more time (when I may) looking into it.

Jon

*well-simulated annoyance* Will you stop with this unhealthy USB fetish? It is explicitly not a design goal of the project to connect to PCs, and we are in no way prepared to take on the support workload of dealing with "how do I connect it to my PC and solve the driver conflicts?" type of questions. If you have ever worked in a position that involved frontline support with years 7-12 teachers, you will know exactly what I mean. Without PC connectivity, we can develop a complete support/troubleshooting flowchart that ends in either "problem solved" or "return for warranty replacement". If a PC with indeterminate software is involved, the support flowchart has to keep evolving every ten minutes as a new and exciting incompatibility or conflict is discovered. Been there, will never do it again.

Perhaps more relevantly, if the kid had a PC, they would not need nor want this device; there are a billion and three little programmable boardlets that can be used if the child has a PC on which to run a cross-development environment.

:) You do NOT have to expose the USB to the end user, if you do not want to.

USB is the new standard for Cell Phone plugpacks, so you can simply use it as a power connector, if you want. Or, just use it for the Keyboard ?.

However, given that someone more technical IS going to produce and test these, a form of USB access is certainly going to be useful there. It will also allow a rapid 'support node' firmware update service - (you don't want to add to the waste stream)

The more generally useful this is, the more chance it has of hitting critical-mass, and avoiding a short lifecycle.

-jg

Only if you build it as USB host and have a screen as well.

Cost. Cost. Cost.

Why don't they just get a PDA?

The spec calls for a screen - eg TV. USB host comes for free in the device I suggested.

If you mean the cost of USB, that's not large. You also need to factor in that PS/2 connectors are not on some new compact PCs, which moves PS/2 keyboards onto another price curve.

Cost. Cost. Cost. ? ;) - it also misses the educational target more, not to mention exposes everyone to short lifecycle, fragile products..

-jg

They do not have to be mutually exclusive. I was talking from a Hardware viewpoint - of course, your first target users would see a " focused product that, out of the box, does one limited (and accurately documented) thing " - but that does not say you cannot design the hardware to support feature growth.

How long do you hope to hold their attention for ?

-jg

Regardless of how funny the spec is, the keyboard and screen would be shared. So, they only need one anyway. The device can run on batteries, but no input/output until AC powered (for the TV)

In message , larwe writes

How essential is the DIP package? AFAIK VERY few DIP parts are available these days,. May be better with a surface mount MCU on a DIP carrier? That may give you more room on the MCU choice

40 off for 5 years total 200 parts? Or were you thinking several batches of 40 per year?

It depends on personal preference. I first learnt on the z80 and a friend on the 6502... You always have a soft spot for the first one :-)

I think the supply of any 40pin DIP will diminish over the next few years.

The 8051 family per-say will be around for a some time yet.... but 40 pin DIP is another matter. It has advantages over the Z80 of having on board peripherals and VAST amounts of support.

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This news from NXP (and yes, you can buy one MINUS USB ;)

LPC1300 (demos June 26 2009, and they will be widely available from September 2009.) Devices without USB start at $0.99 in 10,000 unit volumes. [8KF/2KR/ UART] Those with USB 2.0 will be priced starting at $1.49 in 10,000 unit volumes.

With 70MHz core, and a fractional BAUD uart, and a SSC port, this should handle video and comms and 8K ram allows reasonable SW project sizes, certainly for simple entry methods.

-jg

On May 27, 4:16=A0pm, -jg wrote: # This news from NXP (and yes, you can buy one MINUS USB ;) # # LPC1300 (demos June 26 2009, and they will be widely available from September 2009.) # Devices without USB start at $0.99 in 10,000 unit volumes. [8KF/2KR/ UART]

and more news, the Atmel SAM3's "Prices from US$3.50 in quantities of 10k units"

Peripherals are interesting - Snappy SD bus, fast SPI Bus !

4-bit 192 Mbps SDIO/SDCard 2.0 8-bit 384 Mbps MMC 4.3 Host and 48 Mpbs SPI interfaces on-chip. UARTS, SSC,

- and some other serial ports, you can ignore if you wish ;)

With a Wide Vcc this would run well from batteries. With low idle power, 96 MHz Core, and some family-growth, hard to imagine what more your project would need ?

-jg