I’m writing an assembler for the MC6811 processor. I’m retargetting my HJA430 assembler that I wrote for the MSP-430 (documentation is here: flat assembler - HJA430 --- is there RTL for the MSP430 anywhere?).
My info for the MC6811 comes from the M68HC11E.PDF document from NXP. That document just lists the instructions alphabetically, but does not provide an opcode map. I made my own opcode map from this information. I intended to attach it to this post, but new users of the forum are not allowed to attach files. If I can get permission to attach files I will provide this for anybody who may be interested. I had to manually reformat all of this data from the alphabetic list of instructions, so mistakes are possible — if you find any mistakes, please tell me.
I am interested to know what processors are popular for robotics.
Does anybody use the MC6811? The MC6811 is an 8-bit artifact of the 1980s, but it still looks interesting to me.
Does anybody use the MSP-430? This is a more powerful 16-bit processor with low power consumption. What about the PIC24? Are 8-bit or 16-bit processors used at all, or does everybody demand 32-bit processors nowadays? Do you use an RTOS? I’ve been looking into FreeRTOS. Does anybody use this?
Does anybody program in assembly-language? If so, did you write your own assembler?
If you program in a high-level language, which one? Forth, C, BASIC, or what? Did you write your own compiler?
I’m planning on using an FPGA clone of the MC6811, rather than use NXP’s actual M68HC11E chip.
Does anybody use FPGA chips? If so, did you write your own Verilog or VHDL?
Well, I have been promoted to “trust” level, which apparently means that I can upload files.
Here is the opcode-map that I mentioned above. 6811-opcode-map.txt (5.3 KB)
There have been zero responses!
Most likely this is because nobody on this forum programs in assembly-language.
Everybody uses a high-level language such as Python or Scheme or whatever, and you don’t care what processor is on the board just so long as it is 32-bit and has a megabyte of memory, or whatever is required by Linux.
In the somewhat unlikely case that anybody is interested, I have dropped the MC6811 for now (because NXP no longer supports it) and I am now writing an assembler for the STM8 (I have already written an assembler for the MSP430 and I continue to be into using that processor).
Any thoughts on the STM8? It is just an 8-bit processor, so it is probably not for robots such as you are interested in.
@assembler_writer Welcome to the RobotShop Community. Likely no responses because of the holiday period.
RobotShop & customers tend to focus on the educational / hobby side, so the choice of processor corresponds to that.
ATMel chips of all kinds which are Arduino bootloader / IDE compatible are very popular
STM chips (STM32 being one of the most popular) are used
ESP chips (ESP32 being one of the most popular) are used
“Other” chips like Raspberry Pi’s 2040 chip
Although not a microcontroller, Raspberry Pi single board computers are incredibly popular, as are the NVIDIA Jetson lineup. Not a lot of talk about FPGA unfortunately.
