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Every time I've seen someone use an 8051 in the past twenty years, it's had new, bespoke software written for it. They were more used because they were a known quantity with the patents obviously dead rather than support for existing codebases.

by kjs31 days ago|

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Interesting comment. I suspect without solid facts that new bespoke stuff is mostly either 1) some ARM variant, or 2) some rando US$0.001 Chinese uproc. I think 8051 survives because there's many decades of experience using it, but as I understand the cool kids going into embedded don't think the boomers 8051 is fun and the pool of talent is shrinking fast. SO we'll see what the future holds.

by monocasa1 days ago|

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Those aren't mutually exclusive. Some of the sophgo and bouffalo chips have 8051s for always on cores, and riscv for the main cores.

They didn't choose 8051 there for experience, but because it was a tiny core with a decent IPC they could license for a small part, then focus on the main cores. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually switch to riscv there too.

Also, these 8051 cores tend to be extremely diverse. I don't think I've come across cores from different manufacturers that were actually compatible for real code. They all seem to want to handle accessing 16/32 bit memory differently, have different interrupt details, etc.

by kjs31 days ago|

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Interesting...I don't know much about sophgo and bouffalo chips. Not surprising since the 8051 is patent-free these days. Something I found crazy is how many places someone embedded an 8051 core. Like the tire pressure monitor in every tire these days. Fun stuff.

by lowbloodsugar1 days ago|

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>You learned it in the 70s [emphasis mine]

I really don't know anything about this space, but you just said that 8051 is dominant because it has one dominant architecture since the 70s. It has hundreds of manufacturers making identical parts.

As you say, software matters. If the Software can't run because of hundreds of extensions that can't be checked for, then you're going to pick a target that works, no? So in fact the ISA matters most: which ISA has the most software? Which ISA means my software runs on the most devices?

by kjs31 days ago|

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I really don't know anything about this space

And yet you couldn't help yourself...

but you just said that 8051 is dominant

I said absolutely no such thing.

If the Software can't run because of hundreds of extensions

The software in the x86 world runs because there aren't hundreds of mutually incompatible extensions. I think the last time there was a major completely incompatible x86 ISA divergence was AMD "3DNow" vs other SIMD extensions. AFAIK the rest were "processor X got feature Y later than competitor Z".

Which ISA means my software runs on the most devices?

Easiest question evah: x86.

by lowbloodsugar1 days ago|

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Yeah, I completely misinterpreted you post. Apologies.