I don't want to spark a religious debate, but I can't let this pass...

I have done a fair amount of work with the 8051 family and (I freely
confess) nothing much with the PIC yet.
That being said:

There are more than 300 different 8051s out there, from 20 pins to 100
pins+.  Many have flash memory.  99% have UARTs.  Running on batteries isn't
a problem, and neither is driving LEDs.  CAN, ADC, DAC, PWM, etc, are all
(of course) available.

Big advantage (as far as I can see) is the *ALL* of the 8051s have the same
core architecture and - crucial for me - can be prigrammed with the same C
compiler (from Keil in my case).  This does not seem to be the case for the
PIC familiy, for which I seem to need around three different compilers?

Michael.

>
> I have a couple of 8051 boards at home.  Each has an 8051, EPROM, RS232,
> and one has an 8Kx8 EEPROM.  I bought them to play around with several
> years ago.  Cute, but not terribly useful if you're wanting to do things
> with an absolute minimum of parts and effort.  You almost need external
> driver transistors for an LED, for heaven's sake.  No timers, no hardware
> USART, lots of current required and they're picky about power -- none of
> this running from two AA batteries. I don't use them for anything now. I
> probably will figure out some use for them, but right now they're
> paperweights.
>
> Yes, I know there are far better 8052 variations available now, but not at
> PIC prices, and not from the places I buy from.  All in all, I'm happy
> with PICs and have not had any recent instances of wishing I were still
> writing code for Intel processors.
>

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