Re: F2FS On USB Sticks?

On 3/23/25 3:06 PM, rbowman wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2025 06:05:34 -0400, c186282 wrote:
 

    Ya know ..... think I'm gonna stay away from Pico's
>
    If I want microcontrollers, there are more traditional straight-up
    boards out there. If I want microprocessors there are the straight-up
    PIs and beyond.
>
    Did use PICs for a long time ... kinda remember their quirks and
    tricks. There are Pico/Nano style boards to be had cheap that use
    PICs. Atmel versions also exist.

 You pays your money and you makes your choice. You are right, there is a
confusing selection of low cost boards compared to 15 or 20 years ago when
boards like the Arduino or BeagleBone started to appear.

   Just recently bought two Ards ... the old Uno and a 2560.
   Have weather apps in mind and the libs easily do all the
   funky little devices and one-wires and such and there's
   megatons of docs.
   Oh, you CAN do ethernet, even a web page, on the Uno ...
   but it's *slow*  :-)
   Also have a BBB but have never gotten around to it yet.
   SOMEBODY does or did make something that looked a whole
   lot like a PI, but used some PIC instead. A Pi is faster,
   but the PIC likely uses lots less power and can go
   almost static between interrupts. Job, best tool. Note
   the Ard low-power lib is pretty damned good too, have
   used that with solar-powered units before.

I still have an old AVR development board. I should get a USB to serial
converter to see if it still works. I preferred the AVR instruction set to
the PIC's.
 Today you have to add a lot of qualifiers. The PIC32MX was based on the
MIPS architecture and was sort of a dead end. The PIC32C is ARM based.
Since Microchip bought Atmel, there are also the ATSAM ARM series. They're
also coming out with the PIC64 based on the ARM Cortex A, rather than the
Cortex M.

   But is Cortex-based REALLY a "PIC" ???  :-)
   16F84 was a PIC.
   My fave PICs are the 12Fxxx 8-pin little lovelies.
   So small, so cheap, so versatile. I've even used
   them to emulate ordinary logic gates if speed was
   not super-critical ... that cheap, and can be most
   anything you want, even drive a serial display.

Even the Arduino Uno R4 Minima is a ARM processor.  It looks and acts like
a UNO R3, which was the last of the ATMega line. Other Arduinos like the
Nano have moved on to ARM processors too.
 Adafruit has the Feather boards some of which use the RP2040 like the
Pico. One of them comes loaded with CircuitPython so you don't even need a
IDE. Plug it in, edit main.py, and you're good to go.
 Then there are the ESP32 boards with RISC processors or the Pico 2 with 2
ARM cores and 2 RISC-V cores, take your pick.
 If you're really a glutton for punishment, there is STM32. They're used
quite a bit in commercial embedded applications. The problem with them is
there are a million (okay, not quite) variations with arcane part numbers.
Is it a F403 or a F411? How many pin does it have?
 The newer uCs have more memory which means they can support CircuitPython
or MicroPython. Of course you can use a C/C++ SDK for more control and
faster execution but that will differ between processors unlike the more
uniform Python abstraction.
 Decisions, decisions...  Most options are inexpensive, or really cheap if
you don't mind rolling the dice with AliExpress.

   Seems like microcontroller overload these days :-)
   You can still buy the Epson FOUR-bitters from DigiKey ...
   read the sheet once, can be tweaked to interface with
   almost anything, AMAZING versatility with nanowatt
   standby power.
   However the bigger pain/expense lies in the 'development
   systems/boards'. You don't just buy the chip - you have
   to be able to program it too. Discourages experimenters.