well, most of the 35 can have parameters. First calculate all possible
instructions.
I will cheat a little for times sake. Say 16f series uses 14bit
instructions. thats 2^14. Thats 16384 possible instructions
combinations. Really it is of cource quite a bit less because some of
the bits are ignored for some instructions.

Now take 16384^1024
Windows calculator gives me this:
3.681440950105214388934181504608e+4315

Not to mention the config word ;-)

I wonder how many 286 it took them to come up with windows 3.1

Actually it would be neat to perform a genetic algorithm on smaller
bits of code to make subroutines, and then try combinations of those.
With self-programming chips you could make evolving robots. They would
even die after a while from flash overuse.

- Ben


On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 17:25:21 +0100, Dominic Stratten
<dominic.stratten@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> Heres something I've been thinking about for a while.
>
> If you took a 16F627 Pic Microcontroller with 1024 words of memory and 35
> instructions, how many possible programs could be generated for this
> microcontroller (working or not).
>
> This brings me back to the theory that Microsoft have a million high powered
> computers generating random code for Intel Cpu's.
>
> Every now and again a usable program drops out of one of these machines and
> they package it and sell it as an operating system or office package. The
> downside of this method is that the software is usually very buggy and
> normally needs fixing before its even been released ;-)
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
> [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads
>

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads