Motorola or Microchip?

[Orin Eman]

> 
> >  I just bought a 6805 EVB (programmer) for $25 from a co-worker. I think 
> >  Future (or someone like that) lists the Motorola stuff but be prepared, 
> >  the 6811 EVM listed for $7-800 last I checked; EVB is cheaper. Get a 
> >  catalog from 'em. Again though, check carefully into the Moto stuff, I 
> >  think they are about to revamp some of their strategies and improve the 
> >  chip availability. Also contact a local sales office or distributor; they 
> >  oughta be able to fix you up with some windowed samples or something, 
> >  especially if you mention that Microchip word :-)
> 
> Todd, I noticed an "intel.com" in your sign off... why not use a Pentium Pro
> 200? <smile>.  All kidding aside, I had gone the route of selecting the
> Motorola 68HC11E9 for the processor when I had the illusion I was going to
> build an EFI setup easily (yeah, right).  I also purchased from one of my
> staff members, who finished school for electronics, the student version of
> the Motorola evaluation kit, and found it to be a great resource, having
> serial ports already installed to dump code and program the chip with a
> bootstrap loader to read the EEprom.  I haven't done anything with it other
> than attach it to my PC as I have other sections of my mid-engine project
> that requires immediate attention, but its a cheap way of getting into it, it
> really is.
> 
> I chose the chip for several reasons... the E9 version has eight A/D lines
> coming in, and with minimal buffering circuitry, can monitor a lot of engine
> sensors with that.  Also, one of my good friends who lives in Pittsburgh has
> been using that chip for many years in a custom gas sniffing monitoring
> equipment and knows the entire line of chips like the back of his hand.  To
> me machine code is machine code and the minor differences between chips
> instruction sets is a matter of reading a book and learning a little bit...
> the I liked the Motorola series because they have a flexible line of chips
> that you can choose from cheaply and get the job done.

Active Electronics (Future retail store) here have a low power E9
eval board for $160.  LCD display, wire-wrap area and serial I/F to PC.
Only 512 RAM and 512 EEPROM to play in, but you can add more in the
wire-wrap area and learn a lot in the process!

Orin.