8051 sources

[SavannahLion]

Not much to it. Found some really sweet boards that use the 8051 that I can't wait to get my hands on. Found a few general knowledge 8051 books but not a whole lot by way of forums. The forums I did find (like 8052.com) suck. Nothing that compares to groups centered around say, the AVR, PIC or 6502/6507 chips. I know there's a few 805x guys here so where do you go?

[koz319]

Probably not what you are looking for as its more about a compiler, but I know mcselec has a forum for their verison of an 8051 basic compiler.  I have no idea how active it is though, or if any examples are helpful outside of their platform.

http://www.mcselec.com

Koz

[MonMotha]

Is there any reason you are interested in 8051?  It's a pretty ancient architecture...  I'm not sure that there's much hobbyist activity around them anymore.

PJRC (the guy who makes the popular AVR Teensy board) did a bunch of 8051 stuff about a decade ago.  His site still has a bunch of useful info.  If you can find a copy of the old Intel or Signetics databook, it's a really good reference.  I was lucky to get a printed copy off a shelf at a local electronics store.  I don't know that I have a PDF kicking around, and IIRC the full databook is hard to find, but I have seen them out there.

[SavannahLion]

There's a line of 8051 uC's with integrated transceivers. There are "barebone" boards available for ~$24-$27. So a pair works out to be around $50. The only serious drawback from what I can see, besides the ancient 8051 is the proprietary wireless communication protocol. It would be icing and cake if there was a bluetooth or even Wifi library to draw from, but those are probably too intensive.

The closest offering I can find in a modern lineup is the AVR SCS lineup. I know PIC offers more than a few wireless microcontroller solutions, but I haven't yet found anything in the low cost range. Or more specifically, the "barebones" boards. I don't really have a whole lot of interest in buying the more expensive teaching or evaluation boards.

[MonMotha]

Nordic has an ARM CM0 + transceiver in a single package.  It's actually a fairly flexible architecture.  You can run bluetooth on it (not 802.11, though).  The software for bluetooth will take up quite a bit of space on the MCU and IIRC is not free, but it's available.  Look at the nRF51822.

You may also look at the Atmel "Zigbit" modules which are and 802.15.4 transceiver + AVR in a single package.  They're ~$20, but you'd need a carrier board of some sort.  They have some dev kits available that may be suitable for experimentation in that price range.  They're old AVRs (and old 802.15.4 transceivers), but they do work, and they're a hell of a lot nicer than 8051.

PIC isn't really much nicer than 8051.  I'd say avoid it if you can.