The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

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#81 – Jersey Jeff Jactitation

    Whilst Chris is on his belated honeymoon, regular cohort Jeff Keyzer from Mightohm.com takes over.

  • Jeff has been travelling again:
  • He barely survived Berlin for New Years, what with their readily available fireworks, unlike Australia.
  • The Edison National Historic Park in New Jersey
  • Another surplus shop tour, including the TWR swap meet.
  • Will Detroit just make crappy cars again? or will they turn all Japanese?
  • Dave heard a big BANG on his desk, something smells fishy.
  • Jeff isn’t too happy with TI’s new MSP430 web based development environment
  • Will Raspberry Pie meet their $20 price target? Dave & Jeff think they might have a hard time.
  • There is a 6502 documentary in the works.

Comments

  1. Last time I met embedded 6502 core it was at some 28k or 33k dialup modem chipset.. But that was years ago, so I tend to doubt they do those much any more. Or do they still sell those?

    Of course there is still some market for Commodore C64 turbo modules. I have seen some people use those at old-computer party.

  2. That was a Rockwell modem chipset. Still around in older modems, or at least those that still use a DIP part for the modem firmware.

  4. Totally agree about that TI Web dev thing – you lose a connection and you are totally screwed.
    It WILL be too slow – howevre fast your connection is the latency will still make it too slow.
    Complete waste of time & resources, which would be better spent making a PC-hosted dev environment better.

    • Jeff was maybe thinking of the mbed with an NXP LPC1768 ARM Cortex-M3 and a C++ online development environment. They did that online stuff some years ago. I am not sure if they were the first, but one of the first.
      And I agree it is pointless. It is another attempt at a hype. Some people follow it, because it is new, modern and on the web, THE WEB! So it must be good. Gime venture capital, dammit!
      3G on the other hand works very nicely in the densely inhabited areas of Europe, because the network operators invested a lot of money into the networks, because they ran out of ideas how else to waste the heaps of money they make.
      Australia and the US have the problem that they are huge and the last thing network operators would do is to invest more than absolutely necessary into networks.

      • Yes, it was the mbed. Thanks for posting, even after the show I could not remember the name of that board – it still pops up in projects from time to time.

    • Its by inventortown.com. Done as a proof of concept, works ok. Still needs a small app do load the .hex file to the board, as well as a programmer. I see the value for educational usage, seeing there is a community built in, make code example swapping dead simple.

      I would not trust it at all for something long term. I could see it taking off if they did it for Arduino, but I don’t see them supporting 2 platforms types (web vs install). Still, considering its Java based…

    • The IDE’s that exist for almost any micro are ridiculously large in size and bloated. They sometimes come in downloads of several GB’s. I’m sure you know all that Mike. The only better alternative to a simple online editor is a simple offline editor.

      Who is working on micros while at the train, bus or in the car on a 3G network? You don’t loose your internet connection at home or work, do you? It’s a fine solution or for evaluating the MSP430 platform, or writing small programs. Maybe the community thing could be a plus, so you could easily get example code while working on your project…

    • Additionally,

      The raspberry pi has two models neither of which was ever slated to sell for $20. The model A will retail for $25.00 and the more powerful model B for $35.00

  7. IMHO ThinkPad is the best and most durable laptop. Can’t compare any other to it unless it’s intentionally made to be indestructible.

    • I have used Thinkpads at various companies over the past few years. They are pretty sturdy – I dropped one while waiting in the airport security line and noticed no ill effects or damage at all.

      When I was shopping for a laptop last year, I was very concerned about price and weight, which led me to the Toshiba I have now. In retrospect, I should have spent the extra money for a Thinkpad or a Macbook.

      • Both my Apple laptops and some old IBM ThinkPads at work are indestructible. Apple laptops have greater longevity on the usability aspect too, I think because of the OS.

        • Hmm! I Don’t think the Operating system can affect the robustness of the hardware otherwise PC’s would spontaniously combust. Lol

  8. Raspberry-Pi is in production of the 35 USD version board only as a first spin. They have ordered 10.000 boards if I can recall correctly.

    Alexander.

  9. I think the unabomber – Ted Kaczynski was really an antigeek. I recall his opposition to technology was a motive for some bombings. Amongst his targets were a materials engineer and a comp sci professor.

  12. Hi Dave, That Bang may have been external (ie outside) as both you and you wife heard it.It’s not unknown for an external upstream fault you trip downstream earth leakage breakers.

  14. I really believe these web based development environment for microcontrollers are out there so that companies can easily push out cross platform development kits, which are closed and controlled. It is in direct opposition of releasing your compilers and what not as being open source… It is the exact opposite of an open source dev environment.

  15. Jeff, in answer to your question about why someone would use the 6502 (besides nostalgia): If I understand correctly it’s still used in automotive technology and medical systems. According to WDC (http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/) they are still produced at rates of up to 100 million a year so I’m sure it’s not all hobbyists that buy them to re-create 1980s computers :-). On the other hand, this number probably also includes the 65816 which is the 16-bit version of the 6502 which can address a lot more memory, has more registers and runs faster. Also, a big part of their business is to license the design so others can incorporate a 6502 into a ASICs and FPGAs. I bet many hardware and software engineers know it so well because they grew up with it, so it just ends up being an easy choice.

    I guess for companies that have to design a medical device like a heart defibrillator or a car computer that controls a combustion engine, it’s important that they can keep using the same CPU that’s well-known in every way. In fields like that, you can’t simply change to the latest CoreWhatever CPU all the time: more complicated chips mean more things can go wrong so more things need to be tested. Over the years, the requirements for high-reliability devices don’t change very much, so it makes sense for companies to just get a license from WDC to produce chips that are based on the tried-and-true 6502.

    • I thought I remember hearing about the simplicity of the instruction set as well. I was screaming that at my mp3 player, but apparently that only works if you have a microphone in front of you. Who knew?

  16. Is the Octopart presentation about pricing up on the ‘net anywhere? Quick google didn’t find anything.