8051, was Re: Editor religious wars (was Re: Museums)

On Jan 26, 2010, at 1:49 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: It has been second-sourced by just about every chip manufacturer in existence...literally a few dozen companies make 8051 variants nowadays. It wasn't that huge twenty years ago, but it was still very widely second-sourced...I suspect that had a lot to to with its widespread adoption. Add to that the fact that there just weren't all that many low-cost architectures in that space in the early days (the original 8051 came out in 1980), and the fact that it's very, VERY good for control applications (look at the boolean instructions for an idea as to why), then look at all the third-party development tool support (very good 100% free stuff too), and you have a recipe for success. The barrier to entry for 8051 development is almost nonexistent. Then, engineers typically use what they know, and it spreads like crazy from there. I've done tons of work with 8051s over the years, and I love them, but I have to admit I've always felt hamstrung by the memory addressing scheme. It's fine once you get used to it, but that's one part of the architecture that I really dislike. When I first got into ARM, I used 8051 for "small" applications and ARM for "big" applications, but when low-end ARM chips like the Philips LPC2103 hit the streets, I started using them for some of the lower-end stuff too, but I still use lots of 8051s for very small applications. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL