Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Paul Rubin Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: new embedded forth Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 18:57:30 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 32 Message-ID: <87d1k8fto5.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> References: <5139e808-ac86-4b5d-8b2c-7e6e99f06888@googlegroups.com> <87k2ehhb0m.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="590ea01354cf4bcbcd857d7ebbd88128"; logging-data="29297"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+5utILqGcCX1i4SxE3UbTa" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:8h009NDlfD/Ke9DU1dkB9qChmQE= sha1:FT6EuLIg+dlhU1iTXYU+/XKyXc4= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.forth:50924 rickman writes: > Why would you think TI didn't care about the MSP430? They sell a > whole bunch of them and likely there is no ARM that will fill exactly > the niche of some of the MSPs when you consider all the factors. Well they are even giving the MSP designation to ARM cpus now (MSP432 is based on Cortex M4). Of course they'll keep shipping existing 430 models as long as people keep buying them, so my question is more about whether there will keep being new designs. I do get the impression that there aren't that many new design wins for the 430. There is apparently some process limitation that prevents them from making ARMs with FRAM but maybe they'll get around that somehow. > Otherwise it is just price for the big jobs. I don't think the MSP430 > looses on price a lot and can often fit niches that other MCU lines > don't necessarily fit. Well I mentioned a few niches, but as you say, they are niches. I do think designers care about future compatibility and capabilities as well as the short-term price, and I dunno that the 430's are really cheaper than ARMs for comparable parts, especially at the higher end. I'm also awed by the low price of some of the Espressif wifi parts (ESP8266 and so on). They use a MIPS-inspired 32-bit instruction set roughly comparable to a Cortex M3, not binary compatible but there's a GCC toolchain for it. I don't think they have any process advantages or anything like that, so all I can think of is that they're lowering costs by not having to pay ARM royalties. Take a look at wemos.cc sometime -- their D1 wifi board is a favorite in some circles around here. It's crazy cheap, quite powerful, and runs Lua (NodeMCU) and Micropython as well as the usual C stuff.