Higher End PICs...any as high end as the 8051?

I know it may seem like I'm taking the easy way out here by not relearning a whole new instruction set, but are there any high end PICs that are as high end as the 8051? Or any that require external ROM like the 8031?

Huh? The 8051 is an antique. Many 18F series have more internal FLASH (128K) than the 8051 could address (64K total). Why would you want external ROM?

Want easy to program why not give C18 or Swordfish BASIC instead of assembly.

By "high end" I mean with on chip UART, high/low interrupt pins and as many I/O ports as the 8031.

Most MIDI stuff uses the 8031 with external ROM. Not sure if this was done for nostalgic reasons or ease of repurposing or whatever.But my way of thinking is that it's done for a reason...of course I'm not sure if that reason is a "functional" reason or just a "nostalgic" one.

Yep, lots of I/O on PICs too and they can do MIDI too (anything with a UART can). More I/O options than the 8051. Since you want an 8051 why not just use one?

I'm havin' fun with the PICs.

I'm currently working with a 16F628A and I'm writing MIDI code to make one into a MIDI decoder for implementing MIDI control into guitar amplifiers. I was successful at getting one to turn LEDs on and off with a MIDI foot controller as well as being able to put it into a "learn" mode to "learn" the MIDI channel you wanted to assign it. You put it in channel learn mode by holding the learn button down while powering up (an LED lights up solid to indicate that it's waiting for a MIDI message), then once powered up you release the button. Then send a MIDI message from your foot controller. Whatever channel the first valid status byte that comes through was transmitted on is the channel that it will "learn". I've also configured it so that only Program Change or Controller Change status bytes can assign the channel to prevent any sort of "F0" sysex byte coming through and defaulting it to MIDI channel 1 everytime (was a bug it had when I first coded it).

But I know the 16F628A only has so many I/O lines on it so I'm kinda limited as to what I can do with it. So as I start getting more advanced at writing MIDI source code and start designing devices with a higher degree of functionality I'm gonna eventually need a chip with more resources than the 16F628A has.

Ok, the 16F628 is a pretty small PIC @ 18pins. Try something with some real power and actually easier to program than the 14bit core, an 18F4620 is available in a 40pin DIP and has lots of I/O plus peripherals.

Yeah the only reason I used the 628A was due to its cross compatibility with the F84, which I have a NoPPP programmer for. Plus it has the on chip USART and why bit bang a serial routine when you can just get a chip with the UART on chip?

But I'll be looking into the chip you mentioned. I'll have to get another programmer for it obviously but ideally I'd like to have one that will program several different PIC types rather than just one.

Again I'm still very new to PICs but I'm learning rather quickly.

The pic product selector show over 500 different PICs. There should be one that meets you needs.

**broken link removed**

PS get a better programmer (one that works with MPLAB PICkit 2/3, ICD 2/3), they're cheap and include a very handy debugger. The PICkit2 (or compatible like my Junebug) have other tools as well (3 channel logic analyzer, UART tool, logic probe)

Jon Wilder said:

By "high end" I mean with on chip UART, high/low interrupt pins and as many I/O ports as the 8031.

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If that's what you mean by 'high end' then PIC's 'wipe the floor' with the old 8051, they offer far greater (and better) facilities.

Most MIDI stuff uses the 8031 with external ROM. Not sure if this was done for nostalgic reasons or ease of repurposing or whatever.But my way of thinking is that it's done for a reason...of course I'm not sure if that reason is a "functional" reason or just a "nostalgic" one.

Click to expand...

It's done just because it's such an antique, with most PIC's you simply reprogramme it in circuit to update it, that wasn't an option back in the 'dark ages' - so you could either replace the entire chip (if it had internal ROM) or replace an external EPROM. A common way of working was to design 'piggyback boards' which contained a processor and memory, but plugged in a normal processor socket. Once the design was absolutely 100% finalised then you would have mask-programmed chips made to fit in later production.

Then later on, when you suddenly found a serious bug, it was common to issue piggyback boards as replacements, until updated mask-programmed devices were made.

Well I guess this is one way to be "different" than the masses. I wonder why the MIDI manufacturers aren't smart enough to use something better than the 8031.

I do plan to get a better programmer. This one I got cause it was a 10 year old kit that my local electronics surplus store had and I didn't know it was such an old device. I had to reconfigure my parallel port to run it (has to be on "Standard Parallel Port instead of Enhanced Parallel Port) and I was able to find WinPIC, which also works with it, but I wish it was compatible with more PICs and had more of the features blueroomelectronics mentioned. It gets the job done but I don't plan to stick with it.

Jon Wilder said:

Well I guess this is one way to be "different" than the masses. I wonder why the MIDI manufacturers aren't smart enough to use something better than the 8031.

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Because they are still selling old designs from India, or even new designs - they still use the antique 8051's over there.

I believe the 8051 core has no licensing fees, so they can manufacturer a metric poop tonne of them at manufacturing facilities with no safety or environment regulations. Helps with the bottom line.