MTK51 8051 Microcontroller Trainer Kit | Hacker News Reader

MTK51 8051 Microcontroller Trainer Kit

kswichit.com

45 pointsrbanffy25 comments

I've had a lot of fun messing with SiLabs EFM8 series chips recently. They've taken an 8051-compatible core and added a bunch of the peripherals you'd expect to find on a modern ARM SoC; SPI, I2C, USB, CAN, Watchdog, and the PWM/PCA module has a lot of interesting options for generating different waveforms.

SiLabs provide a free license for Keil 8051, which is based on an absurdly old DOS assembler called A51.EXE (The Mac/Linux version runs under Wine behind the scenes).

The SDCC toolchain supports 8051 fairly well, using code ported from the ASxxxxx project that dates back to the PDP-11 days! http://shop-pdp.net/ashtml/asmlnk.htm

There was an attempt to add 8051 support to binutils and gdb in 2001, but the patches were never merged. If somebody's looking for a project to get their hands dirty... This would be a good one. https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2001-12/msg00489.html https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2001-12/msg00488.html

I really like the 8051 ISA, it's simple enough to wrap your head around and the modern variants are competitive on price and power efficiency with things like the PIC and AVR.

That said, with ARM Cortex-M0 chips costing only a few cents more and having active support in every toolchain, it's hard to argue for 8-bit solutions beyond nostalgia or sunk cost. Still, they're fun chips.

Using an 8051-based trainer like this is definitely a retro choice even just in terms of 8-bit solutions. For example, Atmel has had AVRs that are pin-compatible with their 8051 line ever since they introduced the AVR and it's just so much nicer in terms of instruction set, peripherals, etc. Normally you'd use an external programmer and development toolchain these days too.

There's one thing about EFM8 that you simply cannot beat: price. We're using them in several product lines and aside from some minor errata, our experience has been very good. When it comes to doing simple real-time control (PWM and the like), you just can't beat a $.40 MCU... not to mention the smallest 20-pin version is just 3x3mm.

From the name, I thought it would be a MediaTek product...

The 8051 is a very unusual architecture by contemporary standards, but is found in a surprisingly large amount of products and by some statistics, outsells ARM by a wide margin.

How relevant is it compared to, say, the 8-bit Atmel stuff, when it comes to new designs?

It's not relevant at all today. Use a 32-bit micro unless you've got a really good reason to do otherwise.

And cost isn't one of those reasons anymore.

As a standalone microcontroller, I'd agree. But as an IP core integrated to some design it is still quite relevant.

Or if you have low power requirements. The TI MSP430 really shines here.

The MSP430 really isn't that much lower power (if at all) than the Cortex M4 series nowadays.

The 8051 was originally developed by Intel but there were many second sources. It has a Harvard architecture so separate code and data memory space and furthermore an external memory space. Also can do single bit operations which is useful for controlling IO pins. Although an 8-bit processor, the compilers (like Keil which is now owned by ARM) are quite good. Not a days if I was wanting a low end micro-controller I would go with an ARM Cortex-M as the 32-bit CPU just makes programming a lot easier. I recall the days I spent micro optimizing a 32-bit multiply or divide on an older 8-bit CPU.

> Although an 8-bit processor, the compilers (like Keil which is now owned by ARM) are quite good.

Quite good? Keil's compiler is horrible. It produces large (2x too big) slow (2-4x too slow) binaries.

Which compiler would you recommend using instead?

I don't think there's a competent 8051 C compiler.

Compared to what?

Compared to handcoded assembler. To the level comparable to gcc -O3.

Handcoded assembly is slower to develop and it depending on the capabilities of the developer so there are tradeoffs. And is gcc available for an 8051?

Like I said, I wish 8051 had some good compiler. Like gcc.

No disagreement there that handcoded assembly is slower to develop! You do get code size below 50% and it runs twice as fast.

In the late 80's, I helped design a car on-board computer based on the 8052. PL/M was a fairly decent programming language.

I've done a bunch of 8051 projects, if you have to choose between ARM and 8051 - choose ARM!

8051 cores are cheap but they have weird memory hierarchies - managing them results in giant code, unless you're willing to break into assembly way too often

If the MTK51 seems a little full-on, I'm currently in the last week of a fully backed Kickstarter[1] based on the ATTiny85. Just got our final 1.0 test boards today and start shipping next month.

Documentation and tutorials are at https://docs.hidiot.com/ if anyone's interested.

[1] - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2072712581/the-hidiot-c...

Wow. This brings back quite a few memories. A number of years ago (15 to be exact), I spent a good portion of my final semester senior year at MIT in a lab (6.115) programming the 8051 in assembler and wiring interesting things up to my nerd kit. Taught me a lot about how computers work at a low level and interact with other devices (I remember using an oscilloscope to watch bytes coming in from a MIDI device that I had wired up to it).

Going to the course website, it looks like they still use the 8051, and the same professor is teaching the course.

I also learned assembly with the 8051.

My project was a floppy disk drive, a floppy disk drive that had an LCD, which totally makes sense...

I had lot's of fun with the simpliest one of TI's launchpads[1]. Sample code is written in a way that doesn't hide implementation details like Arduinos do. It really improved my understanding of uC.

[1]: http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/tools-software/launchpads/overview...

Edit: I should have added I meant MSP430 series as now I see they have arm based boards as well

This guy has several other similar microcontroller/microprocessor training kits available as well - http://www.kswichit.com

Neat stuff!

heh feels like a generic HP48 to me.. I'd love to have this.

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