4 ms·
I've been meaning to give this a try for a while - I have several of the "supported" systems and I've designed a couple of my own simple Z80 computers over the
by alnwlsn 2y ago
I've been meaning to give this a try for a while - I have several of the "supported" systems and I've designed a couple of my own simple Z80 computers over the past few years. Being able to program AVRs from a scavenged e-waste Z80 system seems strangely compelling to me. There's a LOT of AVRs in e-waste.
But, if you absolutely needed to depend on it, I think that other technology might be better for the kinds of things we normally use microcontrollers for. If I need to control electronics where something that does this for a minute, then waits for that so it can do something else until this other thing, it's hard to imagine that a would-be apocalypse-ee would want to use a microcontroller rather than a more easily improvised mechanical cam timer [0]
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_timer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_timer
- kragen 2y agoI'm interested to hear what kinds of things you find AVRs in! Are they reflashable?
- alnwlsn 2y agoCould be just about anything, from thermostats to CPAP machines to SFP fiber transceivers. Anything that needs to be just a little bit smart (but usually not internet connected) can have one. For hobbyists, the ATMega328P was the go-to for about 15 years, before ESP32 and Pi Pico took over more recently. I'm sure Arduino helped a lot with the AVR's proliferation. There are no one-time programmable versions of AVR as far as I know, so they can all have their internal Flash reprogrammed.
- kragen 2y agoAwesome, thanks! I know them mostly from hobbyist contexts, and I noted that Atmel kind of stopped updating them after the ATMega328PU (and then failed as a company), so I wondered if they were kind of a failed product line, because there weren't enough hobbyists to sustain the product line. It's nice to hear I was wrong!