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Whatever happened to 8051? — Parallax Forums

Whatever happened to 8051?

John A. ZoidbergJohn A. Zoidberg Posts: 514
edited 2011-05-03 12:30 in General Discussion
I've seen AVRs, and PIC everywhere. And even the 68HC11 in my workplace (university) before the lecturers changed it to PIC to suit modern times.

But, where is 8051 nowadays? It seems hobbyists had forgotten about that, or abandoned it for the AVRs. Anyone played with the 8051s before?:smile:

Comments

  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-05-01 03:37
    It's very widely used, because of its very small size and low cost. It's usually incorporated with other devices on the same chip, as Nordic Semi has done with one of their wireless chips. Silicon Labs is probably the major supplier these days, they even make a 100 MIPS version of it.
  • UnknownUnknown
    edited 2011-05-01 05:23
    Have you tried Google?

    http://www.8051projects.info/forum/forum.php
  • NexNex Posts: 1
    edited 2011-05-03 12:15
    I just switched from the 8051(variant) to the Propeller. I liked all of the features of the Propeller, so I bought the Pro Development Board to give it a try. I converted my 8051 assembly libraries to Spin and started to duplicate some of my 8051 projects using the Propeller. I'm now switching back to the 8051. As a hobbyist (and mostly a software guy), I cannot tolerate the extra hardware required to interface to a lot of 5V parts. Some things work fine with the 3.3V others do not. The 8051 always works. There must be others like me, so the 8051 will live on.

    The 8051 is old, but it's the GREATEST! :smile:
  • RobotWorkshopRobotWorkshop Posts: 2,307
    edited 2011-05-03 12:30
    Nex wrote: »
    I just switched from the 8051(variant) to the Propeller. I liked all of the features of the Propeller, so I bought the Pro Development Board to give it a try. I converted my 8051 assembly libraries to Spin and started to duplicate some of my 8051 projects using the Propeller. I'm now switching back to the 8051. As a hobbyist (and mostly a software guy), I cannot tolerate the extra hardware required to interface to a lot of 5V parts. Some things work fine with the 3.3V others do not. The 8051 always works. There must be others like me, so the 8051 will live on.

    It took a little be of getting used to to working with the mixed voltages (3.3V and 5V) on projects but now that I've done it a few times it isn't too bad. The extra power and flexibility of the Propeller more than make up for it. If your projects don't leverage any of the advantages of the Propeller (code in OBEX, etc) then I can understand. However you still may want to keep the Propeller in mind for future projects. I have a couple projects that use the old 8031 and 8042 chips which will probably stay as they are as long as I can continue to get those chips. For new projects the Propeller is proving to be very useful.

    What kind of 5V devices were you connecting to? Were the connections to the Propeller mostly outputs, inputs, or used as both? Some of the interfacing can be as simple as a resistor inline with the I/O pin. In a couple cases where I needed a bit more drive I used a 74HC14 chip on the output of the Prop which ran at 5V to drive other devices.
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