[sdiy] Re: Bottom Ten ICs

[Paul Maddox]

Richard,

> Dunno. I always think of them as washing machine controllers.

I see your point, but to me the 68K is an old obsolete CPU, thats well due
for retirement.

> I like to
> have spare MIPS to play with, and if you're doing one offs and not 10,000+
> industrial designs than something with more grunt seems like a better
idea.

16MIPs is enough for most apps, agreed sometimes you need more.
My biggest bugbare is that the newer CPUs are all SMD, which means no
prototypeing onto vero (yeah, I know you can get adapters but that costs),
so you have to design a PCB and get it made, before you can start
prototyping a design.

> Like these, for instance. Thanks for the info. Do you know the prices of
> the newer high end ones?

last time I checked (a year ago) around $70 each, so not bad for what you're
getting.
But if all you need is a micro to drive your DAC and S&H, the a £5 AVR will
do the job with ease :-)

> You never know when your MIDI interface is going to need ethernet. :-)

Hehehe, NEVER, until they can guarantee delivery at a set time!
but, thats a whole different argument.

Paul