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> technological progress is still going on, but it's more "your smartphone can now do what your desktop PC did 20 years ago, or your laptop did 10 years ago" I
by nicoburns 5y ago
> technological progress is still going on, but it's more "your smartphone can now do what your desktop PC did 20 years ago, or your laptop did 10 years ago"
In terms of tech that would excite a geeky kid, I think it's more like "you can now buy a $1 microcontroller that's as powerful as desktop PC from 30 years ago". Which is pretty exciting as it means you can throw computing power at all sorts of real world automated which wasn't feasible for a hobbyist before.
TL;DR The modern equivalent of a programmable calculator is an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi not a smartphone.
- eternauta3k 5y agoWhat microcontroller are you thinking of?
- foldr 5y agoQuite a few of the following options would give a 386SX from 1992 a run for its money in terms of raw computing power: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/embedded-microcontrollers/685?s=N4IgjCBcoKwAwDYqgMZQGYEMA2BnApgDQgD2UA2iAMxgAsAHPVSMTQ-TCyLQOxUCcPTsQQcATAjFdaDMTAis69fnBABdYgAcALlBABlbQCcAlgDsA5iAC%2BxMP2XIQaSFjxFSFEKo0gdew1NLG2IAWiloZyhjAFcPMkhKYRB%2BdWtbEAjKAFsTFCMSFBIzYxJsbHwjdREnEwATPVCwOAU-XUgQLm0AT018PUxcNHSgA https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/embedded-microcon... To compete with a high end 486 desktop from 1992 you might have to pay a bit more than $1, particularly if you want floating point.
- Narishma 5y agoNot to mention the lack of memory on microcontrollers.
- sokoloff 5y agoESP8266/32 is slightly over a $1 but still within the spirit of “more like $1 micro”. Confining more strictly to $1.00, STM32F030F4P6 (48MHz 32-bit M0) is in spitting distance to a 386 or 20MHz 68030 for some workloads. (50 MHz 486-DX2 was introduced in ‘92, but the typical desktop PC of 1992 was much lower spec.)
- nicoburns 5y agoIt was indeed the ESP8266/ESP32 I had in mind. The ESP8266 is slightly over $1, but not much! (e.g. available here for $1.17 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32651747570.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32651747570.html)
- crobertsbmw 5y agoMSP430 g series are under a dollar depending on what package you get. The DIP package is a little more expensive than the Smaller TSSOP but they are incredibly powerful.
- mrob 5y agoA typical desktop PC from 30 years ago had at least 2MiB RAM. There's no cheap microcontroller with this.
- nicoburns 5y agoI guess not, but you can get a Raspberry Pi Zero with 512MiB for £10. That's not $1, but it's definitely still "within relatively easy financial reach of a kid" territory