alt.hn

12/11/2025 at 12:41:46 AM

Do 8051/8031 assembly like its 1984

 https://rodyne.com/?p=3225

by boznz

12/11/2025 at 8:32:27 AM

I was working on 8051 today.

It’s still alive and kicking.

by andrewstuart

12/11/2025 at 7:58:54 PM

How does it compare to 6502, 6508, 68000 and Z80?

Is it easy to use? Or advanced-ish? For hobbysts

by iberator

12/12/2025 at 11:04:16 PM

If you work in C and are happy with the standard libraries and don't want to go too deep into the hardware then most of the 8-bit micros are pretty similar. During COVID and the component shortages I had to do a bit of swapping around, luckily it was all GPIO, I2C and UART stuff so nothing too taxing.

by chinabot

12/11/2025 at 3:12:55 AM

Or like it's 2025. Plenty of current-production parts using an 8051 core as either their main sequencer, or as a low power core with bigger options on the main power rail.

by addaon

12/11/2025 at 4:35:16 AM

8051 is cool, but no one is going to be writing their own homebrew assembler for them, there are plenty of FOSS ones.

And even assembly itself is going away, sdcc is a perfectly good compiler which is sufficient for a lot of 8051 applications.

by theamk

12/11/2025 at 8:31:27 PM

Why not? I wrote a 6502 assembler a few months ago - despite being born decades too late It's fun

by iberator

12/11/2025 at 4:08:15 AM

It can be hidden away in SoC IP blocks, like DisplayPort blocks, too.

by hogehoge51

12/11/2025 at 3:52:32 AM

8051 rapidly being replaced by RISC-V now.

by snvzz

12/11/2025 at 3:55:54 AM

Can you give an example? I see RISC-V being used to replace custom 16 and 32 bit cores, and M0-class ARM cores, in the 10k+ gate range, but haven't really seen a migration in the 8 bit space.

by addaon

12/11/2025 at 4:06:07 AM

I have personally ported a usb c usbpd stack from 8051 to cortex m0 to rv32ec. I can’t talk for gate count, it for code size the biggest factor was the compiler, with ARMCC giving the smallest code. As the rom was larger than the core, that was a bigger factor in gate count.

by hogehoge51

12/11/2025 at 2:37:30 PM

rv32ec is indeed less dense than thumb2.

This is of course not the case anymore with the newer bitmanip and code size extensions, but it holds true for the older, crude rv32ec.

by snvzz

12/11/2025 at 12:41:47 AM

A shameless trip down memory lane after re-discovering my first Turbo Pascal program

by boznz

12/11/2025 at 7:40:53 AM

Nothing 1984 about it.

Nuvoton N76E003AT20:

N76E003 – a 1T-8051 based series MCU, offers 18 KB Flash ROM, configurable Data Flash and 1 KB SRAM. It supports wide operating voltage of 2.4V to 5.5V, temperature range of -40℃ to 105℃, and high noise immunity of 7KV ESD and 4KV EFT.

$0.30 Add to the cart

by timonoko