Tuesday, January 05, 2010

SwiftX Forth and 8051 and Linux

Maybe 3 other people in the world would probably be interested in hearing that I have gotten the evaluation copy of SwiftX Forth running under Linux (Wine) talking to Silab's USB Toolstick's C8015F931 daughter card.

I had to steal the daughter card UART and re-route it to a separate USB->UART bridge for SwitfX's XTL (programming still works through the Toolstick), but it all works (so far) under both Windows and Linux (Ubuntu!).

I am playing around with 8051s because I am feeling retro and a bit weary of the TI MSP430 family. The C8015F931 has some impressive low power numbers and some neat features to make even a lowly 8051 appealing.

I have to remember to do a post on my newest interest: Augmenting sensors with tiny low power MCUs to make them smarter.