I semi-accidentally acquired a fairly large quantity of surplus ROMless
8051-class parts in DIP-40 packages. These include Intel and Signetics
8031, 8032, and lots of Dallas DS80C310 and DS80C320. Along with them
came a bunch of 6264 and 62256 SRAMs.

Somewhere in my archives I have a layout for a board that takes a
DIP-40 8031 and has 32K of program flash and either 2K, 8K or 32K of
RAM. It also has a level-shifted serial port, and some misc. headers
for GPIOs and such.

In this day and age, is it worth my while to do a production run of
these boards and offer them for sale to get rid of the surplus chips? I
would write a small bootloader and preload that into flash so you
wouldn't need additional hardware to load code onto the board.

I figure I could sell an assembled board for ~USD35.

larwe wrote:

> I semi-accidentally acquired a fairly large quantity of surplus ROMless
> 8051-class parts in DIP-40 packages. These include Intel and Signetics
> 8031, 8032, and lots of Dallas DS80C310 and DS80C320. Along with them
> came a bunch of 6264 and 62256 SRAMs.
>
> Somewhere in my archives I have a layout for a board that takes a
> DIP-40 8031 and has 32K of program flash and either 2K, 8K or 32K of
> RAM. It also has a level-shifted serial port, and some misc. headers
> for GPIOs and such.
>
> In this day and age, is it worth my while to do a production run of
> these boards and offer them for sale to get rid of the surplus chips? I
> would write a small bootloader and preload that into flash so you
> wouldn't need additional hardware to load code onto the board.
>
> I figure I could sell an assembled board for ~USD35.
>
For that price I think you could. And remember -- this is coming from
someone who thinks the best thing to do with an 8051 is strip the pins
off and use it for a shim.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google? See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/

"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" came out in April.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

"larwe" <> wrote:
>I semi-accidentally acquired a fairly large quantity of surplus ROMless
>8051-class parts in DIP-40 packages.
....
>In this day and age, is it worth my while to do a production run of
>these boards and offer them for sale to get rid of the surplus chips?

This kind of boards may be attractive for low end robotics projects,
etc. Check what feedback you get from posting in comp.robotics.misc
and comp.home.automation

larwe wrote:
> I semi-accidentally acquired a fairly large quantity of surplus ROMless
> 8051-class parts in DIP-40 packages. These include Intel and Signetics
> 8031, 8032, and lots of Dallas DS80C310 and DS80C320. Along with them
> came a bunch of 6264 and 62256 SRAMs.
>
> Somewhere in my archives I have a layout for a board that takes a
> DIP-40 8031 and has 32K of program flash and either 2K, 8K or 32K of
> RAM. It also has a level-shifted serial port, and some misc. headers
> for GPIOs and such.
>
> In this day and age, is it worth my while to do a production run of
> these boards and offer them for sale to get rid of the surplus chips? I
> would write a small bootloader and preload that into flash so you
> wouldn't need additional hardware to load code onto the board.
>
> I figure I could sell an assembled board for ~USD35.

35 USD is definitely much more realistic than what some others are
selling.

For example look at this:
http://www.8052.com/store/index.phtml?PRODUCTID=30

$250 for the assembled unit? No way, not a chance.

-Isaac

Hello Tim,

>>
>> I figure I could sell an assembled board for ~USD35.
>>

With that much RAM and flash, probably. Lewin, just keep in mind "the
competition", mostly in the form of PIC, AVR, MSP and other header
boards. The last ones I bought where $12.95 IIRC and that was with a
MSP430F1232. Not nearly as much RAM but you get a 16bit engine and
excellent micropower behavior.


> For that price I think you could. And remember -- this is coming from
> someone who thinks the best thing to do with an 8051 is strip the pins
> off and use it for a shim.
>

Hey, c'mon, at least the 8051 family is multi-sourced. Which other uC
family can match that? BIG incentive.

My '51 designs are the ones that seem to be cranking forever. The first
one dating back to 1994 is still in full production and there is no end
in sight. For some other uCs you wouldn't even know whether purchasing
can get them for that long. My design goal is usually 10+ years,
preferably 20 years.

Heck, even our pellet stove controller contains a Winbond 8051. I just
had to look, of course :-)

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Joerg wrote:

> Hello Tim,
>
>>>
>>> I figure I could sell an assembled board for ~USD35.
>>>
>
> With that much RAM and flash, probably. Lewin, just keep in mind "the
> competition", mostly in the form of PIC, AVR, MSP and other header
> boards. The last ones I bought where $12.95 IIRC and that was with a
> MSP430F1232. Not nearly as much RAM but you get a 16bit engine and
> excellent micropower behavior.
>
>
>> For that price I think you could. And remember -- this is coming from
>> someone who thinks the best thing to do with an 8051 is strip the pins
>> off and use it for a shim.
>>
>
> Hey, c'mon, at least the 8051 family is multi-sourced. Which other uC
> family can match that? BIG incentive.
>
> My '51 designs are the ones that seem to be cranking forever. The first
> one dating back to 1994 is still in full production and there is no end
> in sight. For some other uCs you wouldn't even know whether purchasing
> can get them for that long. My design goal is usually 10+ years,
> preferably 20 years.
>
> Heck, even our pellet stove controller contains a Winbond 8051. I just
> had to look, of course :-)
>
> Regards, Joerg
>
> http://www.analogconsultants.com

That's just the reason that I've reluctantly decided to consider it as
an alternative. I have the usually fortunate habit of visualizing the
assembly code that's behind every line of C or C++ I write. When I'm
writing for an 8051 it's painful to consider.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Posting from Google? See http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/

"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" came out in April.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

On Thu, 11 May 2006 13:51:33 -0700, in comp.arch.embedded Tim Wescott
<> wrote:

>Joerg wrote:
snip
>That's just the reason that I've reluctantly decided to consider it as
>an alternative. I have the usually fortunate habit of visualizing the
>assembly code that's behind every line of C or C++ I write. When I'm
>writing for an 8051 it's painful to consider.


"I have the usually fortunate habit of visualizing the
assembly code that's behind every line of C or C++ I write"

Ignorance is bliss.

I'm just happy playing with the somewhat clunky Raisonance
8051complier


martin

larwe wrote:
> I semi-accidentally acquired a fairly large quantity of surplus ROMless
> 8051-class parts in DIP-40 packages. These include Intel and Signetics
> 8031, 8032, and lots of Dallas DS80C310 and DS80C320. Along with them
> came a bunch of 6264 and 62256 SRAMs.
>
> Somewhere in my archives I have a layout for a board that takes a
> DIP-40 8031 and has 32K of program flash and either 2K, 8K or 32K of
> RAM. It also has a level-shifted serial port, and some misc. headers
> for GPIOs and such.
>
> In this day and age, is it worth my while to do a production run of
> these boards and offer them for sale to get rid of the surplus chips? I
> would write a small bootloader and preload that into flash so you
> wouldn't need additional hardware to load code onto the board.
>
> I figure I could sell an assembled board for ~USD35.

Such a PCB still has education merit, and the price is appx right.

Much above that, and you bump into the Eval Board prices :

eg Eval Boards from Silabs are ~$50, with F064 demo ~$25, and their
tool-stick is $10. Complete Eval sytems are ~$99
These all have the on-chip debug.

The new Eval system from Ramtron is ~$99, for PCB/JTAG Debug/cable
That PCB has a TQFP64 40 Mips VRS51L2070, 2xDB9 UART, 8 LEDS,
0.1" pin areas, 3 FRAM devices.

Atmel and Winbond also have on-chip debug 89C51 variants comming.

-jg

Tim Wescott wrote:
>
.... snip ...
>
> That's just the reason that I've reluctantly decided to consider
> it as an alternative. I have the usually fortunate habit of
> visualizing the assembly code that's behind every line of C or C++
> I write. When I'm writing for an 8051 it's painful to consider.

I conclude you rarely use a PIC :-)

--
Some informative links:
news:news.announce.newusers
http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html

On 11 May 2006 09:05:28 -0700, "larwe" <> wrote:

>I semi-accidentally acquired a fairly large quantity of surplus ROMless
>8051-class parts in DIP-40 packages. These include Intel and Signetics
>8031, 8032, and lots of Dallas DS80C310 and DS80C320. Along with them
>came a bunch of 6264 and 62256 SRAMs.
>
>Somewhere in my archives I have a layout for a board that takes a
>DIP-40 8031 and has 32K of program flash and either 2K, 8K or 32K of
>RAM. It also has a level-shifted serial port, and some misc. headers
>for GPIOs and such.
>
>In this day and age, is it worth my while to do a production run of
>these boards and offer them for sale to get rid of the surplus chips? I
>would write a small bootloader and preload that into flash so you
>wouldn't need additional hardware to load code onto the board.
>
>I figure I could sell an assembled board for ~USD35.

If you are able to make it software compatible with the MCS BASIC-52
interpreter for the 8051 series, that might also be very nice. Intel
used to give away the User's Manual (I have one of them) and Chapter
10 is about appropriate system design for the BASIC.

(I also have a hundred 40-pin DIP 80C32s with piggyback POR circuits
soldered to each one but leaving them free to socket up okay,
individually checked and verified, sitting in a box -- from many years
ago.)

Jon