On August 19, 2005 03:32 pm, William Chops Westfield wrote:
> The 8051-basic was a moderate success.  A microcontroller with a
> full-ish basic in ROM/EPROM capable of running a basic program
> that had been entered via console or stored in (external) eprom.
>
> You'd think that with more modern microcontrollers, this sort of
> thing would be a natural "reference design" to demonstrate processor
> capabilities, in much the same way that some version of linux ends
> up ported to larger systems.  Further, you'd think that with the
> bigger, faster 8051 variants out there, AT LEAST those would appear
> with self-contained basic interpreters.  Yet with the possible
> exception of the Atom from basicmicro, all I see is modules (at
> several times the price of bare chips), and all commercial rather
> than "chip selling aid" style freeware.
>
> Where is basicAVR, basic18f, basicARM, and all the other variants.
> Where is the open-source high-level language chipscale basic
> interpreter, easy to port to your choice of micro/storage/comm
> combination with only minor amounts of custom work?
>
> Or was this never as popular as it seemed in the first place?

Looking at the big picture, if you are doing one-ofs, the basic-stamp 
seems an example of success for what you refer to, however, if you are 
targeting hi-volume, small empty chips are the way to go.
Just suppose that a basic-variant chip costs $1.00, but if you can 
justify the labour of doing it in assembler into a chip that cost $0.30 
and you are building 100,000 units, that would be an extra $70,000 in 
your pocket if you cut costs.
So, supposing you are faced with a similar situation, now would you 
choose the BASIC chip, or would you choose the cheaper chip and an 
extra $70,000 in your pocket?

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