[HH] 8051

[Tom Metro]

Tom Metro wrote:
> The 80s equivalent of an Arduino wasn't a TI99 or C64, but a Motorola
> 68HC11, or any of the countless micro controllers derived from the Intel
> 8080 or Zilog Z80.

Correction...I just ran across a reminder that it wasn't the 8080 I was
thinking of, but the Intel 8051. (I believe the 8080 was a CPU (no
integrated peripherals), albeit primitive.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-51

They were ubiquitous microcontrollers in the 80's, and got a further
popularity boost by being used on the IBM PC motherboard as the keyboard
interface, eventually being merged into the southbridge ASICs. (I think
they were used in the keyboards, too...nope, according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-51#Related_processors it was the
8048, a related MCU.)

I vaguely recall there being a flavor of the 8051 you could get with
BASIC in ROM that was popular with hobbyists. (I might have one in a
junk box somewhere. Never used it.)

I guess I easily forget 8051 as I pretty much exclusively used Motorola
MCUs in those days.

Surprisingly this antique design still lives on today as intellectual
property in other chips, such as in the Sigma Designs ZM3102 Z-Wave
transceiver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-51#Use_as_intellectual_property
  ...they are mostly used as silicon intellectual property cores.
  Available in high-level language source code (VHDL or Verilog) or FPGA
  netlist forms, these cores are typically integrated within embedded
  systems, in products ranging from USB flash drives to washing
  machines...

  Designers use 8051 silicon IP cores, because of the smaller size, and
  lower power, compared to 32 bit processors like ARM M series, MIPS and
  BA22. Modern 8051 cores are faster than earlier packaged versions.
  Design improvements have increased 8051 performance while retaining
  compatibility with the original MCS 51 instruction set.

There is even an open source version:
http://opencores.org/project,8051

 -Tom