On Thu, May 13, 2004 at 12:00:39AM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
> As you said, the newer chips are worse. I've come across chips that have
> gone out of production in the time between the announcement and the
> distributors getting stocks of them. Hmmm....
No kidding... the project I'm working on has had to change chips at
least once, mid-stream.
> Personally, the only 8-bit CPU I think can be depended on to stay around
> is the Intel 8031 family. It's used everywhere, and many manufacturers
> either make it, or make 'improved' versions. You can ignroe the
> 'improvements' if you like.
Those certainly are popular and prevalent.
> I thought the 6809 was getting somewhat hard to find now :-(. The Z80 and
> 6502 were a lot more popular and are still listed in catalogues over here
> (the 6809 doesn't seem to be.)
I'm personally a big 6502 fan, but I also recognize that it's not
universally popular.
> As for SRAM and EPROMs. I am sure both will be around in 10 years time,
> even if at a vastly increased capacity. And just as now we put 2764s in
> place of 2716s with a few minor mods, I guess in the future we'll make up
> daughterbaords to put the latest SMD EPROMs into 28 pin DIL sockets.
Well... that _is_ the the sort of thing that's going to be harder to find
in 10 years... DIP parts... SMD adapters will work, but if you have to
pay for lots of them... they'll get expensive. One for an EPROM isn't
too bad, but dozens?
Fortunately, lots of us have lots of DIP parts lying around, enough to last
years and years.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 13-May-2004 00:40 Z
South Pole Station
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Ethan.Dicks_at_amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
Received on Wed May 12 2004 - 19:52:00 BST