On 08.09.24 09:34, Hendrik Boom wrote:

> My first machine used hexadecimal, so octal has never seemed as natural

> as hexadecimal in my mind.  But instead or using a, b, c, d, e, f for

> the six extra digits, it used u, v, w, x, y, z.

Now that's very unanticipated indeed. I'd observed hexadecimal

supplanting octal notation as the first single board computers came out.

As A-F can be displayed on a 7-segment display, hex saved one LED

display - a modestly pricey component in the mid 1970s. But most of your

alternative character set would require at least a 16-segment display,

and couldn't be driven by a simple 7447 TTL LED display driver chip.

And so many old uPs have gone extinct: National Semiconductor's PACE and

SC/MP, Signetics 2650, and TI's TMS9900 - not surprising when the

companies are gone too. (I'm not counting superseded targets like 8080,

8085, etc. They just made way for bigger brothers.)

Nowadays, folk say that ARM chips have more features/$ than AVR, but

it's not just my accumulated software base I'd throw out with a switch,

but the understanding of 444 pages of datasheet on the ATmeg328P alone.

We are so spoiled now - whip up a schematic and PCB layout in KiCAD for

free, send zipped files to Singapore or China, and receive ridiculously

cheap boards back in a week or two. In the old days, it was a week or

two's work with scalpel and crepe tapes to make a 2:1 or 4:1 layout on mylar film,

then have it photographed and a board or two made for hundreds of dollars

- through-plating extra. Who wants AI? What we have is already supreme

luxury, I tell ya. ;-)

Erik