8051 too old to be useful! or is it?

[large_ghostman]

I am using a 8051 chip for a data logger, nothing too fancy just temp and humidity, but I ran into the problem of distance from my house! its about 3/4 miles away . and then I found this
see pdf.
I Know a very nice lady there who is a product manager, she often sends me 8051 dev kits and tools and we talk on skype at weekends. I told her what I was trying to do and she sent me the dev kit
**broken link removed**

You got to admit that is some sexy chip! Built in transceiver!! She also sent me the Dev kit for pcb antenna's to try out,
**broken link removed**
I always thought 8051 was getting old and past it, but I have to admit they sure have some nice chips! Ok worse part is package size they dont do DIP but I am getting good at TQFN, we spent a few hours the other weekend with her teaching me via skype how to hand solder them. I am getting pretty nifty with them now
I am using the 868 MHz version, let me know what you think, personally I think a Transceiver on a micro is pretty cool

 

[ronsimpson]

I find the SiLabs 8051s are great analog building blocks. I have not used that part. I have used other parts some up to 100mips. They have good ADCs and good DACs. I have worked on a line of products that have a 10 pin "analog" IC in it. But really it has a 10 pin 8051 from SiLabs.

In this case we read in analog voltages, did the math, then output analog (audio) so fast that it looked 'analog'.
8051s are common in modems, radios, TVs, and places where you would not think a 'computer' is being used.

 

[large_ghostman]

I have been given alot of sil labs dev kits mainly 8051 but some of there 32 bit as well, I think they are ace! The radio DEV kit I am playing with at the moment is very cool! They have configuration software that means you can assign virtually any peripheral to any pin (almost) with the click of a mouse, then it does the set up code for you, There forum is also very helpful, you often get help and advice from the engineering staff, which is how I got to know Ms T, she is in texas but makes an effort to talk to a 13 year old kid in the UK most weekends on skype.
I am learning alot from her, she often does webcam tutorials with me like the soldering one. On the whole all the engineers there are willing to go out of there way to help.

 

[ronsimpson]

I consulted for SiLabs for one project. Good people.