Why the 16F877?

What is up with all of these people using the 16F877 as of recent? Doesn't everyone know that that PIC is obsolete, costs an arm and a leg, and was superseded by the 16F887? The F887 is LOTS cheaper at $2.40 USD as compared to the current going price of $6.50 USD, which is almost 3x the cost!

Furthermore, it's not that difficult to port code written for the F877 over to the F887. Slightly different initialization routine and config bits but other than that that's about it.

What say y'all?

When you have a 16F877 it is free.
When you don't have a 16F887 it is money.
When your professor said use a 16F877...................
When your professor is not going to update his class.............(until 2031)

I like it when people have the guts to say what they think and back it up with their name and location. (and picture)

Hi Jon,
I go with Ron on this.

Many developing countries teaching centres are still teaching, using what you call old technology.
Also there are lots of apps and tutorials on the web for the 16F877/A, so many wannabes are building projects from the web.

Many overseas hobbyist's cannot get the latest PIC's or OPA's.

So to suggest there is 'some thing up' with these people, I think is a little unfair.

Jon... The 16f877a is still in major production and a good little chip.. Four of my comercial products are still using it..

Not necessarily unavailable

Jon, are talking about hobbyists?

In my case (and I live in a place that ANY PIC chip costs dearly), I use whatever I have handy provided it fits the requirements of my ongoing design.

About 18 months ago I redesigned a sinewave generator using two 16F84A. Yes, the one that in the past century was already obsolete!!

Since I had them around (a lot in fact) I went ahead. It worked marvels and I suffered very little to rewrite part of the code.

I would agree with you that anyone showing a design with something somehow outdated should warn readers that are better / cheaper chips. But if you think of it, that should be automatic because few months later you will have sure a new chip, good to replace the one you used.

I have read many times about countries where only old chips are used. I tend to believe that mostly, the reason is not the difficulty to obtain the latest ones but laziness of those teaching. My country is a good example.

Have you ever heard of the lousy LM324? And the lousy 741?

BTW, right now I am reworking a design using the 18F452...!

Jon Wilder said:

What is up with all of these people using the 16F877 as of recent? Doesn't everyone know that that PIC is obsolete, costs an arm and a leg, and was superseded by the 16F887? The F887 is LOTS cheaper at $2.40 USD as compared to the current going price of $6.50 USD, which is almost 3x the cost!

Furthermore, it's not that difficult to port code written for the F877 over to the F887. Slightly different initialization routine and config bits but other than that that's about it.

What say y'all?

Click to expand...

OMG! You're still using the 16F887 instead of the new enhanced 16F1939? Man, talk about "the dark ages" (grin)...

Just kidding... Have fun Jon... Regards, Mike

Ian Rogers said:

Jon... The 16f877a is still in major production and a good little chip.. Four of my comercial products are still using it..

Click to expand...

So why not update to the 16F887 and save a lot on production costs?.

However, using the 16F877 isn't as bad as people using the far older 16F84A

Still got a shed load!!!!... I'll probably just re-write for the pic18f4520

Nigel Goodwin said:

So why not update to the 16F887 and save a lot on production costs?.

However, using the 16F877 isn't as bad as people using the far older 16F84A

Click to expand...

For new designs the 887 makes more sense. But many hobby electronics suppliers that supply students and college contracts still have large stocks of 877. Also there are a TON of full projects on the net with 877, and using an 877 means it's as easy as "load the hex code" or minimal tweaks to the source code to change features without a heap of setup register issues etc.

The teacher might have a full curriculum based on code for the 877, and the college storeroom might have a whole shelf of 877s, you know how it goes...

And yeah, a lot of that applies to the good old 16F84 too.

I suspect another reason is the huge number of different microcontrollers that Microchip makes. Farnell list 2056. Which one should I use? Oh ****** I'll stick with the one I know.

None of the parts is prohibitively expensive if you just need one or two for a hobby project. It's hardly worth the effort of learning to use a new chip just to save £1.50.

Yes, I just use whatever I can get my hands on that is suitable for the job.
I still like writing code for the 16F84A just to keep things simple and easy to explain to others.
And I'll even use 12F508s if they are suitable for a task.
Same goes for 16F877A chips. I have a couple still lying around and I'll continue to use them while they're available.

The other reason is that unless somebody makes the suggestion that there is something better out there that isn't more complicated I don't know it exists.
Sure I know I can look at the microchip website and pick out a chip which best suits my needs for a specific project. I don't go actively looking for a new chip to do R&D each week. But since you've mentioned it, next time I go to buy some 877's I'll look at the 887 (if it costs less locally).

The only real difference between the F877 and the F887 is the config word and the way the AD converter pins are configured in the init code. The F877 uses a specific bit pattern for different analog/digital pin combinations that gets written to ADCON1 wheres the F887 has dedicated registers that configure the pins as either analog or digital I/O (ANSEL and ANSELH). Other than that, coding for the two should be identical.