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$1 Microcontrollers (2017)

jaycarlson.net

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Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#61

Post by gmassman »

voakbasda wrote: post #54

I stopped tinkering with electronics despite being a full-time embedded software engineer. I have designed small boards, but I only know enough EE to get myself in trouble. I prefer working with EEs that know their stuff, where our skills can compliment each others’. I no longer work on “hobby” projects; such things become an albatross around my neck. If you deploy a hobby project in your life, you must maintain it.…

I'm sorry to hear about your loss of faith in humanity. Especially hearing how you don't play music with others anymore. I'm a musician and not being able to make music with my friends would be a huge loss.

I hope you find peace and healing. People often suck, but they can also be beautiful if given the chance. And you deserve that chance.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#62

Post by R0b0t1 »

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?

Generally a microcontroller has no MMU. A microprocessor may mean the same thing. The industry term for something with an MMU is an application processor (Cortex-A). There are other terms that can be used, but it will need to be specified.

There is some fuzzy area between MMU-less, small processors, and processors with no MMU but large enough to run Linux in a MMU-less way.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#63

Post by R0b0t1 »

oxplot wrote: post #55

Be careful spending time writing software/firmware for chips that may disappear tomorrow. Cost of the chip itself isn't everything, in fact it's one of the least important things if you're looking at long term cost. This is especially relevant in the current chip shortage climate which has made this point quite salient. Whether it's a hobby project or a high volume production project, you don't want hundreds of hours…

This is a real concern. A lot of these offerings are not useful now because they are not ARM (or, soon, RISC-V). Even with instruction set match, moving between vendors is a huge issue.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#64

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

voakbasda wrote: post #54

I stopped tinkering with electronics despite being a full-time embedded software engineer. I have designed small boards, but I only know enough EE to get myself in trouble. I prefer working with EEs that know their stuff, where our skills can compliment each others’. I no longer work on “hobby” projects; such things become an albatross around my neck. If you deploy a hobby project in your life, you must maintain it.…

> I no longer work on “hobby” projects; such things become an albatross around my neck. If you deploy a hobby project in your life, you must maintain it. Forever.

Alternatively: If you do something yourself, you get the option to be able to maintain it forever. If you buy something, the vendor will probably stop caring the moment the sale completes; any maintenance you want to do yourself becomes a reverse engineering effort as your work into a system that you didn't design.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#65

Post by GeorgeTirebiter »

monocasa wrote: post #52
timpattinson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, STM32 spans the range between the $1 and the STM32F7 at 200Mhz

Up to the H7 now that goes to 480mhz.

...which has 2.14 DMIPS/MHz = 1.027 BIPS (more than 1 instruction per nanosecond). Fast enough?

(BTW, when I see "mhz" I assume this means "milli-Hertz". Similar when people say they have a 42b structure -- I see this as a 42-bit structure. If I wanted to communicate "42 byte structure" I'd abbreviate as "42B structure". Capitals used judiciously transmit meaning compactly.)

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#66

Post by makapuf »

auxym wrote: post #42
hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #20

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.

TBH the rpi pico (rp2040 dev board) is hard to beat for the price of 5$. Dual core ARM cortex-m0+ at 100 something MHz and loads of ram and flash.

Dont forget programmable io ports with their independent tiny cores.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#67

Post by lsllc »

tome wrote: post #29
jahirul247 wrote: post #28

[flagged]

Wow, this might be the first spam I have ever seen on HN!

The mods here are really, really good. I do occasionally see spam & junk comments on HN, mostly early in the (US) morning, but they clean it up quickly. It's one of the reasons I like HN so much, it's very well curated.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#68

Post by iudqnolq »

waschl wrote: post #43

Semi-related: Since few months I am digging into tinkering and electronics. It’s really great to learn about modern era solutions which enable cool projects with low entry barrier. However, I happen to learn about new solutions (new sensors, actors, boards, ICs) more randomly than systematically. I tried to google for databases, blogs or news outlets, but couldn’t find anything suited for my consumerish needs. Going…

(total noob) I like looking at the components adadruit builds in-house. For most of them they have open-sourced the schematics, and you can then look up the building blocks on sites like DigiKey.

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#69

Post by GeorgeTirebiter »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #20

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 been struggling to get TI's (free) Code Composer Studio to recognize my MSP430FR2311 boards now on-and-off for months. They 'upgrade' the code, and then I can't program my devices. In fact, so far, I've spent more time trying to get the dev environment to work than developing my code. Not Fun.

Very cool when it does work, tho. I'd prefer to pay a little more for parts and get some English-based support.

I'll work through the Code Disposer Studio issues...again...

Re: $1 Microcontrollers (2017)

#70

Post by monocasa »

GeorgeTirebiter wrote: post #65
monocasa wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up to the H7 now that goes to 480mhz.

...which has 2.14 DMIPS/MHz = 1.027 BIPS (more than 1 instruction per nanosecond). Fast enough? (BTW, when I see "mhz" I assume this means "milli-Hertz". Similar when people say they have a 42b structure -- I see this as a 42-bit structure. If I wanted to communicate "42 byte structure" I'd abbreviate as "42B structure". Capitals used judiciously transmit meaning compactly.)

FWIW, I've seen capitalization issues in datasheets. When they're this ubiquitous, it's better to use it as an opportunity to apply number sense as a sort of FEC for verbal understanding. A 480 millihertz ARM doesn't really make sense (if you were running at those rates, you're in such a niche that it has ISA considerations where ARM isn't a great option anymore). Similarly a 42 bit structure on an ostensibly 8 bit machine doesn't make sense. Yes it'd probably be a better world if everyone was consistent, but blindly assuming that they are doesn't really help anyone.
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