4 Jan
2009
4 Jan
'09
6:59 p.m.
One must have affection for any proc with instruction "GHI".
An 1802 prob also still somewhat in control of the Earthmade-machine
most distant from Earth.
Steve
Tim Shoppa wrote:
Chuck writes:
I work with both PICs and AVRs (my current
project uses an
ATMega128), but both instruction sets seem to me to be more than a
bit contrived. The AVR less so than the PIC, but still on the "odd"
side of the ledger.
Try programming an 1802 for a while. You'll know you're really into
it when it seems "contrived" that all those other processors can
only use a single of their registers as a program counter :-).
Twisting my mind to switch to 1802 mode and back is a interesting
experience.
The smaller PIC's make perfect sense once you realize they're
Harvard architecture. Bigger PIC's, I never really grokked.
I'm not a 430 evangelist (and suspect that it
will never enjoy the
popularity of the PIC or AVR, which is a shame). I'll work with any
instruction set, but I know what I'd prefer to use.
It's curious that the MSP430's instruction set is close to the GI
CP1600, where the PIC is descended from the very different 1650.
To me it's perfectly obvious that the MSP430 is PDP-11 like, and
in some ways even more orthogonal than the -11. The CP1600 was
substantially less orthogonal, more Nova-like with some
of the registers obviously intended for index use.
Tim.