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The Chinese company Espressif Systems is doing really well in this area, with its ESP32 series.
You get what you pay for I guess :)
The Texas Instruments MSP430 is another good one to look at. At one point, dev kits were available for under $10. It's a good choice for low-power applications. Comes with a free IDE.
The ESP's have low power modes as well, and can run off a tiny battery, which was the primary strength of MSP.
Any thoughts? I like the MSP ecosystem and docs, but ESP also shines there.
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?
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?
The Texas Instruments MSP430 is another good one to look at. At one point, dev kits were available for under $10. It's a good choice for low-power applications. Comes with a free IDE.
I have a few MSP430's, mostly the really lower end ones and I have recently been wondering if it's really worth it for a hobbyist. The ESP's have low power modes as well, and can run off a tiny battery, which was the primary strength of MSP. Any thoughts? I like the MSP ecosystem and docs, but ESP also shines there.
Of course the MSP430 doesn't have a WiFi modem or a giant hobbyist community like the ESP, so I'm really not trying to make an argument for which is "better" just trying to add some contrast to the low power features you asked about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a few MSP430's, mostly the really lower end ones and I have recently been wondering if it's really worth it for a hobbyist. The ESP's have low power modes as well, and can run off a tiny battery, which was the primary strength of MSP. Any thoughts? I like the MSP ecosystem and docs, but ESP also shines there.
It's up to hobbyists what's worth it to them, but the power consumption of the ESP 8266/32 is not _really_ comparable to the '430. "Deep sleep" mode on the ESP seems to be about 20uA, an MSP430FR5969 can go to a 20nA LPM 4.5 mode (factor of 1000 lower). Harder to compare in a HN comment, but active mode power consumption is also in the MSP's favor for many applications particularly when using the built in hardware ac…
MSP's are aging a bit though. At least the ones in my drawer. Is the hw platform being actively developed or has it plateau'd?
The Chinese company Espressif Systems is doing really well in this area, with its ESP32 series.
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…