Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

$1 Microcontrollers (2017)

jaycarlson.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 103 posts

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#21

Post by amelius »

4ggr0 wrote: post #9
rmbyrro wrote: post #2

It's amazing that humanity can produce this sort of hardware under $1. This has implications that are more profound than previous industrial revolutions. In centuries from now, our time will be studied as a remarkably revolutionary one.

I would argue that this kind of price is only doable because people and resources are being exploited for it. Not specifically only for these microcontrollers, but most our consumer products in general. In a worst case scenario, the resources for this $1 microcontroller were mined by an african child, barely earning anything. These resources are then shipped to China(probably), where people along the way don't earn m…

The first step in solving these problems is getting the accounting in place, so we know exactly who is paying what. It is beyond me why we are not even doing that.

Anyway, we could solve these problems if we doubled the price. And then it would still be an amazing achievement.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#22

Post by WaxedChewbacca »

4ggr0 wrote: post #9
rmbyrro wrote: post #2

It's amazing that humanity can produce this sort of hardware under $1. This has implications that are more profound than previous industrial revolutions. In centuries from now, our time will be studied as a remarkably revolutionary one.

I would argue that this kind of price is only doable because people and resources are being exploited for it. Not specifically only for these microcontrollers, but most our consumer products in general. In a worst case scenario, the resources for this $1 microcontroller were mined by an african child, barely earning anything. These resources are then shipped to China(probably), where people along the way don't earn m…

No post body was provided.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#23

Post by graderjs »

4ggr0 wrote: post #9
rmbyrro wrote: post #2

It's amazing that humanity can produce this sort of hardware under $1. This has implications that are more profound than previous industrial revolutions. In centuries from now, our time will be studied as a remarkably revolutionary one.

I would argue that this kind of price is only doable because people and resources are being exploited for it. Not specifically only for these microcontrollers, but most our consumer products in general. In a worst case scenario, the resources for this $1 microcontroller were mined by an african child, barely earning anything. These resources are then shipped to China(probably), where people along the way don't earn m…

I'm sure there's truth to that. But I also think a large proportion of the price (and in general the plummeting price, and apogee-ing performance of many high tech components, such as batteries) is due not to exploitation, but to increases in efficiency. The bequeathed legacy of the thousand accreted technologies and improvements that have layered to produce contemporary supply chains.

Of course...everything we do today is based on exploitation: 1000s of years of exploitation of humans, frequently the worker and poorer classes' labor, 100s of years, and billions dead in war...all our achievements today literally stand atop this ginormous pile of blood and death...but, that ever-present historical reality aside...I think a large proportion of the skyrocketing perf and ocean-depth-plumbing prices of components is due to the compounding and intersecting effects of all our technological efficiencies.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#25

Post by [deleted] »

nanis wrote: post #11
throwaway81523 wrote: post #4

This is a good article but it's a few years old, and out of date now. I can't see its date with my current adblock settings. It would be great if someone could find it and put it in the title. There are stupendously powerful $1 microcontrollers now, including the RP2040 (dual core cortex m0+ with 264KB ram on the chip), ESP32-S2 (Espressif core with 400k of ram and wifi), and ESP32-C3 with wifi and RISC-V core and ag…

[deleted]

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#26

Post by detaro »

fouc wrote: post #24

Maybe this is a dumb question, but are any of these cheap microcontrollers able to run Win 98? Or am I misunderstanding what microcontrollers can do?

None have a PC-architecture (x86+other HW standards), so no, they aren't. It would be possible to make a microcontroller that can, but nobody does. Intel did make a few experiments with x86 microcontrollers, but even those were afaik not PC-like enough, because you generally don't want a lot of those things in a microcontroller.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#27

Post by amelius »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #13
throwaway81523 wrote: post #4

This is a good article but it's a few years old, and out of date now. I can't see its date with my current adblock settings. It would be great if someone could find it and put it in the title. There are stupendously powerful $1 microcontrollers now, including the RP2040 (dual core cortex m0+ with 264KB ram on the chip), ESP32-S2 (Espressif core with 400k of ram and wifi), and ESP32-C3 with wifi and RISC-V core and ag…

>RP2040 Wow, that's an incredibly capable chip for the price!

How fast is the serial interface over USB? (What you need if you want to connect it to a normal PC)
Post reply on HN