larwe wrote:
> On Oct 2, 6:11 pm, Jim Granville <no.s...@designtools.maps.co.nz>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Seems a strange move for Microchip. Maybe they are simply cashed up, and
>>see a fire-sale-price, in an industry they know ?
> 
> 
> One can only hope that if this acquisition did in fact come to pass,
> that uChip would phase out (read: burn at the stake) all parts based
> on its frankly fucked-up legacy 8-ish-bit architectures. Budding EEs
> would then no longer be poisoned. <snip>

Why ? They ship in large volumes, and obviously do the task adequately.
Elegence usually comes at a cost :)

Indeed, Microchip's low Average Selling prices indicate just how
widely popular their bottom-end devices are, and this move may
be an attempt to raise their average selling prices.

-jg

> >> Except that Atmel has been in self-destruction for at least the past
> >> two years.
>
> >What has Atmel done to self destruct, please explain.
>
> Most of the engineering in Colorado Springs is gone.

AVRs are designed in Norway.  What do they do in Colorado?

On a sunny day (Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:20:57 -0700 (PDT)) it happened larwe
<z...@gmail.com> wrote in
<f...@59g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>:

>On Oct 2, 6:11 pm, Jim Granville <no.s...@designtools.maps.co.nz>
>wrote:
>
>> Seems a strange move for Microchip. Maybe they are simply cashed up, and
>> see a fire-sale-price, in an industry they know ?
>
>One can only hope that if this acquisition did in fact come to pass,
>that uChip would phase out (read: burn at the stake) all parts based
>on its frankly fucked-up legacy 8-ish-bit architectures.

Wha ta load of carp, 8 bit PIC is just fine.

>Budding EEs
>would then no longer be poisoned. Dijkstra might as well have written
>about the PIC architecture as about BASIC when he said "It is
>practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
>that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they
>are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration".

Looks like Dijkstra is an idiot.
Probably was projecting some of his own shortcomings.

On Oct 3, 6:51=A0am, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Wha ta load of carp, 8 bit PIC is just fine.

Just out of interest, tell me how to write a C function that takes a
pointer parameter where the pointer may be either in code space or in
RAM.

On Oct 2, 8:43=A0pm, Jim Granville <no.s...@designtools.maps.co.nz>
wrote:

> > that uChip would phase out (read: burn at the stake) all parts based
> > on its frankly fucked-up legacy 8-ish-bit architectures. Budding EEs

> Why ? They ship in large volumes, and obviously do the task adequately.
> Elegence usually comes at a cost :)

Ten million flies can't be wrong, eh?

> Indeed, Microchip's low Average Selling prices indicate just how
> widely popular their bottom-end devices are, and this move may
> be an attempt to raise their average selling prices.

It's been a long time since I looked at pricing on their cheapest
cheapest parts (which I think are the SOT-23-6 devices). In the arena
where we play (8~64K flash) Atmel is cheaper than dirt and comparable
PIC devices are much more expensive, besides being a pain in the ass
to program. Code density sucks compared to MSP430 or AVR, too. A rabid
wombat in a bell jar full of crack smoke could not have designed a
less-pleasant ISA than PIC.

We're talking millions of units a year here, so uChip (which is very
hungry to get us to design in their parts) would already be factoring
in as much volume discount and foot-in-the-door discount as they can.

On a sunny day (Fri, 3 Oct 2008 04:01:59 -0700 (PDT)) it happened larwe
<z...@gmail.com> wrote in
<8...@v53g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>:

>On Oct 3, 6:51 am, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Wha ta load of carp, 8 bit PIC is just fine.
>
>Just out of interest, tell me how to write a C function that takes a
>pointer parameter where the pointer may be either in code space or in
>RAM.

You fail to see the issue at hand.
Small PICs, like the 8 bit, are ment to be programmed is asm.
Sure, many grab, for reasons unknown to me, but
likely incompetence with asm, for the first crappy C subset compiler at hand.
Now _that_ is bad.

larwe wrote:
> Jim Granville <no.s...@designtools.maps.co.nz> wrote:
> 
>>> that uChip would phase out (read: burn at the stake) all parts
>>> based on its frankly fucked-up legacy 8-ish-bit architectures.
> 
>> Why ? They ship in large volumes, and obviously do the task
>> adequately. Elegence usually comes at a cost :)
> 
> Ten million flies can't be wrong, eh?

I am amazed at the things programmers carp at and distinguish.  The
C language is generally admired, yet it is one of the weirdest
languages in existance.  PIC assembly language is also weird (but
works), and is generally poked fun at.  Pascal (real, not Turbo) is
almost the soundest language available to all, yet it is studiously
ignored.

-- 
 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
 [page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>;
            Try the download section.

On Oct 3, 4:20=A0pm, CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> ...
> I am amazed at the things programmers carp at and distinguish. =A0The
> C language is generally admired, yet it is one of the weirdest
> languages in existance. =A0PIC assembly language is also weird (but
> works), and is generally poked fun at. =A0Pascal (real, not Turbo) is
> almost the soundest language available to all, yet it is studiously
> ignored.

C is lower level than Pascal, it wins there. Generally high level
languages are good for newcomers (like tourists who use a phrase
book while on a trip), but for real work one needs lower level
(that is, if you will write a novel you better learn the language
beyond the phrase book).
 With so many of the assembly languages being so poorly designed,
no wonder C has gained its popularity, it thrives on poorly
designed hardware platforms. And no wonder the resulting software
is so messy, it takes an alphabet based language to write real
novels (e.g. English) rather than a hyeroglyph based one (not
many great pieces of literature written in Chinese or Japanese...).

Didi

------------------------------------------------------
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http://www.tgi-sci.com
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Original message: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch.embedded/msg/f2a=
fa662e4070c22?dmode=3Dsource

On Oct 3, 6:51 am, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Wha ta load of carp, 8 bit PIC is just fine.

Indeed it is... as long as you are happy with 8 bit addressing ;-)

In article <0b4a9ce0-c18f-44ab-b418-3c9f169519c1
@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, z...@gmail.com says...
>  A rabid
> wombat in a bell jar full of crack smoke could not have designed a
> less-pleasant ISA than PIC.

Funniest thing I've read in a long time. And laser accurate. :-P