I have purchased an 8051 development board and I am exploring the limits of it. It connects to a computer's RS-232 serial port much like a serial terminal or modem, one can manually download compiled code, change memory cell values and run various programs.
Embedded world, looks like a good site with a lot of good information.
8051 CPU Development
Paul's 8051 page I swear every good 8051 related site is within 3 links of here.
iSigma, where I bought my 8051 board, great customer service. Works with prebuilt and ready-to-build software on Paul's site and also uses Paul's boot monitor, version 2. This board has lots of I/O lines (at least 30), but unfortunately, some of the lines needed to run HP's code for the HCTL1100 without code changes are not available, but a good EE programmer should be able to change the code in a few minutes.
Producers
Microchip Technology, home of the PIC chips. Their descriptions are OK, but there doesn't seem to be an explicit breakdown of what's in a product package, and no images to get a quick general idea of what the products are like. They do have huge numbers of downloadable PDFs though. Grade: 'B+'
Sales, service
DigiKey I rate these people at about a 'B-', you can download their catalog and order electronically, their product descriptions are pretty slim, they refer you to the vendor's root web page.
Jameco While this company's web searching and ordering is much better than FutureActive's, their product descriptions are much better, they still are inadequate. I grade them a 'C'.
Future Active, whatever you do, never buy from here. There is no web-browsable catalog and when you enter a search for a part number, the descriptions are rarely good enough to buy from. Their present sales model is that you get their catalog by mail and order the parts by the part numbers that you see in the catalog. Honestly, I give them a failing grade in e-commerce.
My own home 'index' page that this page is in.
As for site rating, there is nothing on this site that could offend any reasonable person, I do not percieve that anything on this site would be innapropriate for anyone, including children, the elderly or the unstable. In fact, nothing on this site is really all that interesting to anyone, so you might as well look somewhere else!
All copyrights and trademarks are property of their owners, everything else ©1999-2003 Jeff DeMaagd.
This page has not been officially reviewed by the ISP, and they cannot be held responsible for anything I do.