32-bits is the new 8-bits

don't move the goalposts

Actually I'm all for some stability even if that means not being at the bleeding edge. Boards are coming out so fast these days that you can't keep up and from a developer's point of view it's so hard to decide what to design a board for I've pretty much given up and gone back to the main processor on my current project being an ATmega32U4 as used in the Leonardo. (OK there's an 32-bitter in there as a co-processor :slight_smile: but that's just a peripheral chip and another story)

@Lefty
Agreed, one day you just won't be able to buy the simpler more robust chips in much the same way as you can no longer buy a simple car without any computer crap in it. What people will do then I don't know, breakout boards with built in IO buffers I guess.

Maybe there's an opening there for a bright young lad, a 32-bitter with IO buffers on a DIP carrier.


Rob

Maybe there's an opening there for a bright young lad, a 32-bitter with IO buffers on a DIP carrier.

Well the Teensy 3.0 is already half that requirement. It's built as a 28 pin .6" wide DIP module, just add header pins and you have a DIP plug in device. But any IO buffering required will have to be done on the board it mounts into.

Lefty

All my projects use embedded 328 chips, I will be lost without them, unless someone comes up with what you suggested on a carrier.

Incidentally, I have 2 arduino boards, and have had to change the worn out DIP sockets only twice on one, and once on the other. I often plug and unplug chips 20 times a day, and promise myself to try the ICSP when I get a chance !

Well the Teensy 3.0 is already half that requirement. It's built as a 28 pin .6" wide DIP module, just add header pins and you have a DIP plug in device. But any IO buffering required will have to be done on the board it mounts into

That sounds promising, I have no problem with buffering on the external pcb, its the programming that worries me....

Well the Teensy 3.0 is already half that requirement.

That's true.

I guess the problem with on-board buffering is controlling the IO features on a pin-by-pin basis. For example how do you have pin 1 as an input with pullup and pin 2 as an output. And that's not even thinking about the analog IO.

its the programming that worries me....

I haven't used any but AFAIK many of the current environments have that covered in an Arduino-like manner. So that shouldn't worry you too much.


Rob

Boffin1:
I am just getting to know 8 bit Arduino Rob, don't move the goalposts unless it works with the only IDE I know a little of :slight_smile:

FWIW, the teensy 3.0 (Arm Cortex-M4) uses the existing Arduino IDE. True, it just came out, and there still some missing functionality and teething problems, but the IDE is the 1.0.1 IDE.

Graynomad:
Agreed, one day you just won't be able to buy the simpler more robust chips ...

Possibly so, but I hope some subset of the more popular parts will live on as "legacy" devices. We can still get 555 timers, Z80s, 6800s, etc.

... you can no longer buy a simple car without any computer crap in it.

Hear hear! Glad I'm not the only one that feels that way. I think I'm pretty good with a lot of technology, and I will sure use it to advantage where possible, but doesn't it seem like we do a lot of things just because we can these days? Cars seem to be a prime example.

Z80s

Yes and all my old favourite IO chips are still available as well. You can even still get the Micro Professor dev kit. Unbelievable. I swear that one day I'll make a retro board with a Z80, even if there's a BGA packaged ARM under the 40-pin DIP that emulates the old processor :slight_smile:

[rant]
We spend a lot of time in the outback and the horror stories I hear about vehicles that "fail to proceed" because of a stupid sensor failure or some such are just amazing.

For example, a mate of mine has a brand new MAN 4x4 truck, one day it refused to start because it thought the brake linings were worn. Some Ahole in Germany thinks "Well it's dangerous to drive with worn brakes so we won't let you". Tough luck if you're 500k from the nearest town and 1500k from a MAN dealer. (I should add that in this case he was in a major city, but that's not the point, he could have been anywhere)

Another example. A bloke up on Cape York had a failure in his Nissan 4x4. It does allow "limp home" mode at 20 or 30kph so he figured oh well I'll just have to drive the 800k back to town slowly and take a week or so to do it. Of course over that time you have to camp so that night he stops. Next morning no go, you only get one chance to limp home, once you turn the motor off that's it. Decided by some Japanese engineer with a Nissan dealer on every corner no doubt.

As I say to people I meet in the bush with modern vehicles, you can't fix a computer with a sapling and some fencing wire. I drove from near Darwin to south of Brisbane once (over 3000k) with no panels on the front of my car, a radiator from a totally different vehicle and a headlight from yet another vehicle all tied together with wire. (Why? I hit a bull at 80mph and totalled the front of the car, we had it fixed in 3 days on the side of the road and carried on)

My truck is a '71 model and my last 4x4 was a '84 model, there was maybe 10 wires between them :slight_smile: I welded the chassis of the 4x4 once to get home and hot wired the LPG/petrol control on another occasion. I know people that have driven on three wheels using a tree as a skid for the fourth. You have to be able to do that sort of thing in the bush.

I now have a modern 4x4 and in many ways wish I'd never bought it. They are very reliable there's no doubt about that, but if it breaks in the bush I'll probably have to leave it there.

[/rant]


Rob

Graynomad:
I've seen 32-bit processors for as little as $1.10 and $1.50 is common, whereas the Mega328 as used in the standard Arduinos is ~$3.

Chip pricing is quirky, to say the least. At the moment I can buy DIP Atmega328 for ~$3 in small qty, DIP Attiny85 for ~$2 in small qty, and DIP Atmega8 ~$1 in small qty.

Given that the Atmega8 beats the Attiny85 in just about everything (except perhaps compactness), I'm recently been moving my low end projects to this chip over the Attiny85.

Element14's prices as advertised usually aren't very competitive for small qty, but they certainly will negotiate aggresively on higher volume! I have had my eye on the dev board too, btw, but I'm getting a backlog of cool dev boards to play with as it it is!

Graynomad:
I now have a modern 4x4 and in many ways wish I'd never bought it. They are very reliable there's no doubt about that, but if it breaks in the bush I'll probably have to leave it there.

Which makes me think: You've identified a real problem. Wherever there's a problem there's an opportunity...

It's a niche market, but perhpas you could think about simple, rugged, repairable/bypassable/accessible electronic modules to replace some of the "sensor rich" versions that infest modern vehicles. Buy a new Landcruiser, rip out all the fancy electronics, replace it with Rob's bush-bashing worthy gear, and away you go!

(Might void your warranty though. LOL!)

:slight_smile:

I can see it now, the new "we don't need no stink'n sensors" ECU module, complete with N8FW (number 8 fencing wire) and STOS (small tree or sapling) interfaces.

I still can't figure out why I never made my fortune in electronics :frowning:

And to think we're talking about drive by wire on another thread, God help us. You'll cross the border into another country and the on board GPS will flip the thing to left-hand drive (or vv).


Rob

Rob, great examples there. Here are some that stick out in my mind.

Many years back, don't quote me, but I think I may have read it in some IEEE publication. Pre-production luxury car being shown off to the suits, and it won't start. Once the red-faced engineers got it back to the lab to diagnose, it was discovered that the high-end audio system was causing a storm on the bus and the start command couldn't get through.

First-hand from an engineer who had been to a shouting session on the problem. Motorized sunroof was having problems opening and closing. It would bind and stick. Turns out there was a motor on each side to move the rather large and heavy glass. Not sure of the exact details, but the bottom line was a failure to communicate perfectly over the bus between the two motors and they were therefore not keeping in sync and causing a bind.

This is when I began to suspect things had gone too far.

Lastly, we had a nice sedan back in the late-80s. The speedo looked like a normal analog type with a needle, i.e. connected to the trans via a mechanical cable. There was a recall that involved replacing the chip in the ECM (we never did experience whatever the problem was). The wife and I went to pick up the car after the fix, and she drives it back. Now, she is a very conservative driver, but on the expressway coming home, I could hardly keep up with her. Asked how fast she was going and she said 70mph, which was the speed limit. After a brief test, something was obviously wrong, so back to the dealer where they discovered the chip had been replaced with one for another model, and so the maths that drove the servo for the speedo needle were causing the indicator to be low.

I did a temp repair to an old automatic yank tank I borrowed when my leg was in plaster many years back, when the throttle cable broke on the freeway.

Almost fly by wire, but this was fly by fishing line ( thats all I could find in the car ) tied on to the carbs throttle, hooked round the wing mirror, back into the drivers window.

It worked and got me home, but try and picture the acceleration pulling away as the line stretched until the throttle moved !

You couldnt do that on a new BMW !

Boffin1:
yank tank

?? American land-barge? LOL! XD

Note to self, take fishing line on next trip.


Rob

A large ve-hicle from Detroit with small tailfins :slight_smile:

Boffin1:
A large ve-hicle from Detroit with small tailfins :slight_smile:

Or maybe best called Detroit land sharks?

http://www.google.com/search?q=large+tail+fin+cars&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=kGOBUPCUDITC9gS074CoBg&sqi=2&ved=0CEYQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=804

Lefty

Thats it, I loved those cars, though I could never have afforded to drive far in one.

My mate and I thought of cutting off the top of a station wagon yanktank, welding the doors closed to restore some integral strength, make some drain holes in the floor, and a surf board rack / sunshade on top.

Those plans have been shelved for a while.... ( that was in 1980 when were a bit younger )

Not sure I agree. Many of the important mileage and safety features these days in cars (traction control, direct fuel injection, hybrid tech, etc.) are only possible / beneficial through the use of very fast DSPs under the hood. I agree that there are other features in cars that have less to do with basic functionality and more to do with bling (watch movies on the dashboard?) but I have to say that given a choice between a car with traction control and one without, I'd pick the latter, every time. Saved my bacon several times, and CPUs make it possible.

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we may see car-bus systems extend out to the periphery, i.e. turning light assemblies, etc. being powered by a common voltage bus but commanded via a CAN or similar RS485 communication system to save on wiring and weight.

I think you see this through different eyes according to your experiences.

In 40 years of driving I've only had 2 bad(ish) accidents, neither of which would have been prevented by current technology. OTOH I've fixed vehicles maybe a 1000 times in the bush, side of the road, wherever. Many of those times I doubt I could have fixed the car if it was a new one and if it was an electronics problem the score would be 0%.

That said, If I'd been saved from injury or worse by ABS or other technology just once I'm sure I'd be a real convert :slight_smile: For example I don't live in the snow/ice so see little advantage in having traction control, it's one more thing to break, those who do live in such climates may have a different view about the feature.

Of all the electronics "stuff" in a car, how much is safety related? Does anyone know?

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we may see car-bus systems extend out to the periphery, i.e. turning light assemblies, etc. being powered by a common voltage bus but commanded via a CAN or similar RS485 communication system to save on wiring and weight.

Another thing we can't fix :slight_smile:


Rob