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0 pointsnicoburns4y ago0 comments

> 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.

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mrob4y ago

A typical desktop PC from 30 years ago had at least 2MiB RAM. There's no cheap microcontroller with this.

nicoburnsOP4y ago

I 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

eternauta3k4y ago

What microcontroller are you thinking of?

sokoloff4y ago

ESP8266/32 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.)

nicoburnsOP4y ago

It 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)

foldr4y ago

Quite 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-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.

Narishma4y ago

Not to mention the lack of memory on microcontrollers.

crobertsbmw4y ago

MSP430 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.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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mrob4y ago

A typical desktop PC from 30 years ago had at least 2MiB RAM. There's no cheap microcontroller with this.

nicoburnsOP4y ago

I 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

eternauta3k4y ago

What microcontroller are you thinking of?

sokoloff4y ago

ESP8266/32 is slightly over a $1 but still within the spirit of “more like $1 micro”.

nicoburnsOP4y ago

It 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)

foldr4y ago

Quite 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-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.

Narishma4y ago

Not to mention the lack of memory on microcontrollers.

crobertsbmw4y ago

MSP430 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.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse