[sdiy] Scenix/Ubicom

[Tom Arnold]

I always see people talking about PICs and AVRs and other common CPUs so I
wanted to mention my current favorite chip series, the Ubicom SX series.

The SX28 is cheap ( $3 ) extremely fast ( 100MIPS at 100mhz ) and best of
all does extremely cheap in-circuit debugging.  Major drawback is a lack of
any sort of complexity of the chips  ie : no onboard ADC/DAC and the like.
The theory behind the SX chips is Do It In Software.

I mention it because the programmer for it is available for around $80 ( the
SXKey ) and with the addition of a very simple header on whatever board you
use will let you reprogram the part and do single step, single breakpoint,
watch all the registers debugging which I've found to be extremely nice.  

I also have the Atmel STK500, but I've found myself using the SX chips
simply because its just so easy to work with.  

The SX chips are also code compatible with some PIC chips and you can take
then out of turbo mode if you want it to run at the same speed as a PIC you
are replacing.

There is also a Beginning SX Assembly Language book available online for
free, or you can buy the paper version for $20. 

http://www.sxtech.com

-- 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 - Tom Arnold -       When I was small, I was in love,                  - 
 - Sysabend   -       In love with everything.                          -
 - CareTaker  -       And now there's only you...                       - 
 --------------         -- Thomas Dolby, "Cloudburst At Shingle Street" -