[sdiy] returning to the chronic disappointment of the 1496...

[cheater cheater]

> That is all very nice, but the main point is that electronic
> components these days are as cheap as dirt.  My current product design
> will use a microcontroller with 96K RAM, 512K of flash, Ethernet, USB
> Host and OTG, external memory for expansion, six serial ports, and a
> boatload of other peripherals.  It costs about $8 in small quantities.

But you're only doing 20-year-old designs here (mind you, USB is
newer, but it uses concepts and techniques that existed long before
the standard). No surprise at the $8 price. The Z80 was cutting edge
when it was released and things that are cutting-edge now are just as,
if not more, expensive. Look at the costs of 10GB/s fiber-optic
transmitters, or look at Virtex parts. Look at the cost of Intel SSD
drives.

D.

On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 05:20, Tom Farrand <mbedtom at gmail.com> wrote:
> If I recall, that was around late 1976 or early 1977.  I never quite
> got my 8008 (no, not 8080) system to work consistently.  That is why I
> got pissed at Intel and went with Zilog.  The Z-80 actually worked.
> (PCBs with plated-through holes helped a lot, too.)  The EPROM of
> choice was a 1702 and they cost a fortune.  Later, I switched to 2708s
> at about $40 a pop.  A little later, names like Cromemco and TDL hit
> the scene.  Cromemco was expensive but pretty nice stuff.  Like synth
> stuff you could get boards, kits, or fully assembled.  There were even
> synth boards available which is partially how I got interested in
> music.  In maybe 1981 I got to spend a week at Cromemco for business
> reasons.  Really nice people and a class outfit.
>
> That is all very nice, but the main point is that electronic
> components these days are as cheap as dirt.  My current product design
> will use a microcontroller with 96K RAM, 512K of flash, Ethernet, USB
> Host and OTG, external memory for expansion, six serial ports, and a
> boatload of other peripherals.  It costs about $8 in small quantities.
>  I think that is quite a bargain.   There are many such items out
> there and I love it!  Of course, all things are relative.  A phenolic
> knob costs $2.25 which is nonsense, CA3080s are unobtanium, but you
> can buy a 2 gig MP3 player for like $15.  A USB thumb drive has a ton
> of memory in addition to an ARM processor and can be had for seven
> bucks.  To me, knobs, jacks, wire, and metal panels are the expensive
> stuff.  What is behind the panel is organized sand priced ... as
> organized sand!
>
> Peace.
> Tom Farrand
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Ingo Debus <igg.debus at t-online.de> wrote:
>>
>> Am 15.01.2010 um 01:41 schrieb Tom Farrand:
>>
>>> No, a Z-80A I paid $200
>>> for was "prohibitively expensive" when I was making < $8/hour!
>>
>> Huh? When was that?
>>
>> Ingo
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