The 17's are incredible.  Although I must say, the 18's are even better.
Some of the new ideas implemented in the 17's were fine-tuned in the 18
series, particularly table writes and instruction set.

I think most businesses stick with the 16's because of cost (many
third-party assemblers/compilers/emulators/etc. don't migrate across all
series, and they don't want to worry about paying for someone to learn a new
architecture when they already understand one that works).  Many hobbyists
and beginners stick with the 16's because of the wide availability of
documentation and support.  The 17 & 18 chips themselves are also more
expensive, typically at least twice as much as a 16.

Although, I must admit, for small qty. projects, it can be quite
counterproductive.  I can develop an identical application for an 18 in asm
much faster than a 16 due to the architectural differences.  People just
like to resist change, I guess  :)

And I'm sure for everyone who argues in favor of the newer models, we'll
have someone who can vouch for an old favorite.

Jen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pic microcontroller discussion list
> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Jon Baker
> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 9:05 AM
> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: [PIC]: 17 series.
>
>
> When I brought my pictstart+ programmer, I invested in a
> spare 17C44 for
> firmware upgrades- Its been sitting in my
> bits box for months, so I decided to read through the
> datasheets last night
> to see what the differences were. I was quite
> impressed with the extended instruction set, and more importantly the
> ability to run code from external memory.
>
> I just wonder, with all these nice features, why do we hardly
> see any 17
> core related questions on the list- is it cost, or
> just because people want to write their own multiplication
> code for fun - or
> maybe something else? I'd love to know.
>
> --
> Jon Baker
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
> mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu
>
>

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