A complete 8051 core plus some memory some memory suitable for simple embedded takes up less than 1mm square of silicon, so banging these things down on a chip to perform all sorts of peripheral tasks is a no brainer. Plus, there's loads of 8051 compilers and tools . You've even got 8051 cores you can plonk down in FPGA's
True, but a shame... The mot micros of the era were better, much better instruction sets.
Intel sadly won the war....
Intel sadly won the war....
Motorola's problem with the 6800 was that the peripherals could run at 2MHz, but the micro only ran at 1MHz.
That lost it big time for them.
That lost it big time for them.
And software. You needed a CPM card to use Wordstar and other professional sofware on an Apple II.
Y'all may want to check out [url]http://www.opencores.org[/URL] . Free Verilog/VHDL code for a variety of CPU cores, which you can drop into your FPGA code and compile onto your Xilinx or Altera device. Need seventeen cores? No problem, just plop them in.
6809 was faster than intel types of the era, while the clock speeds were low, that was more than offset by the better cycles / instruction, and efficiency of the instruction set. We even did some audio processing on the 6809 - it had a fast on chip multiplier!
Yep -- that was a great thing too - running 2 6809s on the same memory, out of phase. Worked well.
Fairlights were fun.. Had a play with a few of those 🙂
Fairlights were fun.. Had a play with a few of those 🙂
I have been trying to find that out, with no luck. If George sees this sure his google-fu will dig it up.
Looking at Peter Vogel's website http://petervogelinstruments.com.au/ it does mention that they used tracking filters on the audio. Suspect distortion was not great, but was 8-bit log converters!
Looking at Peter Vogel's website http://petervogelinstruments.com.au/ it does mention that they used tracking filters on the audio. Suspect distortion was not great, but was 8-bit log converters!
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I note that many here are fully experienced and versed on digital design and products. However, I don't see the same experience in analog designs, and I think that what might work in the digital realm might not be as transferable to the analog realm.
When it comes to CD, DVD, etc players, this is where I find the greatest problems today, i.e. the analog portion of the design, both the output IC's and the power supplies. Of course, I could be biased, not realizing subtle problems in the digital design of the players, due to my lack of experience with designing the digital portion, but I certainly can see the analog problems.
When it comes to CD, DVD, etc players, this is where I find the greatest problems today, i.e. the analog portion of the design, both the output IC's and the power supplies. Of course, I could be biased, not realizing subtle problems in the digital design of the players, due to my lack of experience with designing the digital portion, but I certainly can see the analog problems.
At Benchmark, where they make some very high quality professional DACs, they say more or less the same thing as you. That is, about 90% of the sound quality is analog and power supply related. Where digital still often remains more of a problem for CD and DVD sound quality is in the process of making them. A lot of digital processing is used, and not without some untoward consequences (although DSP processing quality does seem to be slowly improving). Anyway, not much we can do about it here on the reproduction end of things.
Design errors in the digital path tend to manifest themselves in dramatic ways (no sound at all or complete cacophony). With analog the errors can be more subtle, and thus sometimes even mistaken for achievements (see golden ears swearing by some particular piece of gear).
Odd thing is, waaay back as a fresh grad I went for an interview with Bob Stuart and said exactly that. He disagreed, which may be why I didn't get offered a job. Funny old world 🙂.
If improvement is measured by numbers then yep, they've improved. If by SQ, not at all in fact they've gone backwards. But not really a relevant discussion to have on an opamp thread, yes let's start 'What's wrong with DAC chips?' 😀
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