I'll be honest ... I just thought this was an incredibly interesting chip. I've been using NXP's LPC series of MCUs since, oh, forever ... but this particular chip in DIP8 really jumped out at me since it's so different than what people usually think of when they hear 'ARM'.
The DIP8 LPC810 is still somewhat of a challenge to use precisely because it's so small (by ARM standards, anyway): 4KB flash and 1KB SRAM. That doesn't go far, and in reality you only have about 3KB flash to play with once you add in your startup code and get everything setup.
But that's actually part of what I found so fun about this chip! It's a genuine challenge but a fun one to do something creative and interesting with so much performance in such a small space!
'Small is Beautiful'
Warning: Shameless, unadulterated, highly-personal rant! Really ...
small is where it's at if you care about writing clean, efficient code and really learning how to do something properly and understanding what you're doing!
I always start my new projects with the smallest chip I can, rather than the biggest one available. Why? Because it forces me to keep size in mind, to try to write better, more efficient code, and to get the most out of the limited resources I have. Why do I always start with
ARM chips with 32KB flash and 8-12KB SRAM when I could get something with 512KB flash and 100KB+ SRAM for not much more? Because if I started with those big chips I'd write even sloppier code that took more space than I needed, and I'd be stuck with bigger and more expensive chips and even worse code forever!
One of the biggest difficulties in deeply embedded systems is keeping things lean, without compromising on stability and reliability. That means error checking, data validation, etc., which takes space and time to implement, but you need to keep space in check, so it's an endless series of trade offs, decisions and optimisations.
Deeply embedded development has a lot more in common with mechanical watch-making than it does with traditional SW development: you're always trying to fit an impossible seeming number of gears and components into a ridiculously small package, and everything has to fit in in just the right manner to work at all. To throw some oil on the fire, it also needs to hold up to all manner of abuse and mistreatment that will get thrown at it, and keep smiling back at you day after day!
Something embedded SW engineers understand better than almost anyone else -- except maybe those crazy mechanical watch makers -- is the huge satisfaction in writing clean, concise, efficient code that solves real problems in concrete, elegant, reliable ways. Writing bloated code is easy ... writing elegant code and creating tiny solutions for big ambitions is harder, but also infinitely more satisfying!
Why the LPC810 with it's tiny package, and limited resources? Because it's a fun challenge and a really interesting way to learn ARM!
I really wanted to get this chip in people's hand just to see what people can do with 4KB flash and 1KB SRAM, and a reasonably limited set of peripherals. It's the kind of fun challenge that I enjoy working on, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that!
