I'd can't agree with that. (Apologies if that was tongue in cheek)

The learning curve for modern microcontrollers is a lot simpler. The development boards & tools are more readily available and generally at a far cheaper price. Community help would be more knowledgeable..... How many of the "Arduino Gen" would know what those chips are ?

Sure an 8080\85\86, Z80 or 6502 base system is a fun thing to build, it surely makes you appreciate what the designers could pack into such a small place (memory wise). For starting off I wouldn't recommend it.

I'm sure many of us oldies have gone that way, but how many of us that started in the early 80's would have used a 4004 ?

On second thoughts there is a community supported S100 project and I did see someone selling modules that fit to a motherboard to put together a basic Z80 system (a sep. project from S100).

No argument microcontrollers are easier to learn, but how much do you learn about the system? If easier is the objective you have a point. But a more thorough understanding is obtained following the development following the history. After something like the Z80 a mid step would be the MCS-51 family that is capable of both "address oriented" and :bus oriented".
Digital logic is where we start, bit slice (74181), 4004, 6502, Z80, 8051, PIC (to get Harvard architecture), then Arduino and such. Not easier, but more thorough.

 

In large volume produced items is the use of a mask still used for firmware ?

Depends on how high the volume is. Beyond a certain level of volume, eliminating anything off the chip is worth doing. Back when Microchip was young they generally went to great lengths to eliminate individual transistors even if it made coding more difficult since code development is essentially NRE and if you are going to be selling products counted in the tens or hundreds of millions you can amortize lots of NRE for the savings of a fraction of a cent on the part.

But the computations are a lot more complicated these days because reducing hardware has less of an impact on cost and there is a definite advantage to using the same platform for both development and production, plus using the same part in multiple products. Then there is the maintenance and upgrade costs over the life of the product. Masked ROM still has a place at the table, but it is a much smaller place. It will probably never go away completely, particularly for ASICs, but will probably get pushed further into the lunatic fringe as time goes on.

 

I see absolutely zero benefit to doing that; none whatsoever. He's not going to learn anything useful from them, and about all he's going to get out of the exercise-- maybe-- is an appreciation for what pains in the butt those things were to work with compared to what's available today, and how pitiful their performance was in comparison.


Far better to start with the newer ones, and not waste the money on antiques.

No argument about "easier". But the student still asks incorrect questions without understanding the basics. Your knowledge? Did you start with digital logic then develop toward microcontrollers, or did you start with microcontrollers then learn electronics?

 

No argument microcontrollers are easier to learn, but how much do you learn about the system? If easier is the objective you have a point. But a more thorough understanding is obtained following the development following the history. After something like the Z80 a mid step would be the MCS-51 family that is capable of both "address oriented" and :bus oriented".
Digital logic is where we start, bit slice (74181), 4004, 6502, Z80, 8051, PIC (to get Harvard architecture), then Arduino and such. Not easier, but more thorough.

I have very mixed feelings on this topic. I see so many students that lack significant portions of what I consider foundational knowledge and skills that I tend to see value in starting out at a much more basic level that requires you to learn the concepts at a much more basic level instead of relying on the hardware doing your thinking for you.

But how far do you take this? Do you require that students develop a proficiency with tube-based circuits? While I DO think that doing something like that WOULD strengthen their knowledge and skills in potentially useful ways, I can't claim to believe that the cost/benefit ratio justifies it. So how far back do you go? That requires us to really take a hard look at what constitutes "foundational knowledge and skills" and to recognize that it is the concepts that are important not the hardware. Old hardware has the advantage of doing a better job at forcing someone to learn those concepts in order to succeed and newer hardware makes it easier for someone to skate by and succeed despite not knowing the fundamental concepts well enough, but that doesn't mean that old hardware is required, just that we need to take care with the new hardware that we use it in a way that requires people to learn and demonstrate competency in the core concepts.

 

I have very mixed feelings on this topic. I see so many students that lack significant portions of what I consider foundational knowledge and skills that I tend to see value in starting out at a much more basic level that requires you to learn the concepts at a much more basic level instead of relying on the hardware doing your thinking for you.

But how far do you take this? Do you require that students develop a proficiency with tube-based circuits? While I DO think that doing something like that WOULD strengthen their knowledge and skills in potentially useful ways, I can't claim to believe that the cost/benefit ratio justifies it. So how far back do you go? That requires us to really take a hard look at what constitutes "foundational knowledge and skills" and to recognize that it is the concepts that are important not the hardware. Old hardware has the advantage of doing a better job at forcing someone to learn those concepts in order to succeed and newer hardware makes it easier for someone to skate by and succeed despite not knowing the fundamental concepts well enough, but that doesn't mean that old hardware is required, just that we need to take care with the new hardware that we use it in a way that requires people to learn and demonstrate competency in the core concepts.

Yes, I would spend an hour, or so, on tubes. The concept can be applied at the transistor and nano-scale devices. No, it won't help you blink an LED on your Arduino. But it will help you understand why you need an interface between your Arduino and a motor.
Where did your education start?

 

Yes, I would spend an hour, or so, on tubes. The concept can be applied at the transistor and nano-scale devices. No, it won't help you blink an LED on your Arduino. But it will help you understand why you need an interface between your Arduino and a motor.
Where did your education start?

Note that "an hour or so" and "proficiency with" are two very different things. I haven't looked at intro E&M or electronics texts in some time, but last time I did they both discussed tubes and how they work, but very much at the "hour or so" level (which I tend to think is adequate). I doubt any (or at least not very many) programs actually have students physically work with tube-based circuits.

My education started with the Radio Shack 65-in-1 electronics kit -- my uncle gave it to me as a Christmas present when I was 8 or 9 (I think); it probably turned out to be the single most influential gift anyone has given me my entire life (with the possible exception of Heinlein's "Rocket Shop Galileo", which was given to me by a friend about the same time and opened up the world of pleasure reading to me). It sparked an interest and, coupled with helping my dad fix our cars, I had learned a lot about electricity and electrical circuits (though not much in the way of electronics) by the time I started seeing this material in school. I think that was pretty common at that time (the '70s and '80s). Today a huge fraction of students taking electronics have never played with (or been interested in playing with) electronics until they enrolled in their majors courses in college (and even then only a relatively few are actually personally interested in the stuff). My formal education in college stressed fundamentals by having us start with 7400 NAND gates and build many of the other SSI functions. The basic approach was that we could only use an IC as a building block if we had previously implemented its functionality using more basic blocks. I found this approach extremely effective as it allowed you to work with circuits at a reasonable level of abstraction -- something that translates very nicely to software development as well as many other areas. I never knew that things like microcontrollers even existed until my senior year when we worked with the MC68HC11 and, as a result, it was some time (a year or so) before I realized that the HC11 wasn't the simplest and cheapest microcontroller available. A huge portion of my education has come from just deciding that I would like to design and build something and then struggling to figure out how to actually do so; this is another thing that seems very different with today's students -- very few actually WANT to design and build things, even things that might be of interest to them. When I was an undergrad, I could always count on having company when I went into the labs to tinker on something personal (and the department encouraged us to do so).

 

Old hardware has the advantage of doing a better job at forcing someone to learn those concepts in order to succeed and newer hardware makes it easier for someone to skate by and succeed despite not knowing the fundamental concepts well enough, but that doesn't mean that old hardware is required, just that we need to take care with the new hardware that we use it in a way that requires people to learn and demonstrate competency in the core concepts.

That's pretty much the way I see it, also: the newer hardware doesn't prevent someone from learning the basics, as @hp1729 seems to believe; it just makes it a bit easier for an unwise person to skip some parts. If one wants to make sure he doesn't skip anything fundamental, IMO the best way (at least, it was the best way for me) is to delve into assembly language programming and get intimately familiar with the microcontroller's data sheet rather than dealing only with the abstractions interposed by C or C++. There isn't much to be learned by making function calls to canned peripheral libraries that someone else has designed.

In my opinion, provided a person is determined to do the hard work of learning the only thing he misses by working with the newer microcontrollers rather than the old, obsolete hardware is a helluva lot of soldering (or wire-wrapping) practice. The material to be learned is exactly the same in both cases.

 

In my opinion, provided a person is determined to do the hard work of learning....

And herein lies the key point. I've always maintained that the motivated student that wants a quality education can get just as good an education at a lower-tier state school as they can get at a top-tier private school. Conversely, the student that doesn't want to learn anything is able to not learn anything at either institution as well (though the top tier school is more likely to kick them out at some point in their journey, but that is certainly not guaranteed, either). Sadly, instructors can't count on more than a small handful of their students being motivated to get a good education; most are only interested in checking off a box on their way to piece of paper that they seem to think is actually a magical talisman that will transform itself into a high-paying job just by possessing it. Now, in fairness, we also have to keep in mind that even the motivated students have significant demands on their time and that the squeaky wheels of mundane stuff that doesn't lead to new learning competes for that time along with learning opportunities that are above and beyond the required fare.

 

Note that "an hour or so" and "proficiency with" are two very different things. I haven't looked at intro E&M or electronics texts in some time, but last time I did they both discussed tubes and how they work, but very much at the "hour or so" level (which I tend to think is adequate). I doubt any (or at least not very many) programs actually have students physically work with tube-based circuits.

My education started with the Radio Shack 65-in-1 electronics kit (my uncle gave it to me as a Christmas present when I was 8 or 9 (I think); it probably turned out to be the single most influential gift anyone has given me my entire life, with the possible exception of Heinlein's "Rocket Shop Galileo", which was given to me by a friend about the same time and opened up the world of pleasure reading to me. It sparked an interest and, coupled with helping my dad fix our cars, I had learned a lot about electricity and electrical circuits (though not much in the way of electronics) by the time I started seeing this material in school. I think that was pretty common at that time (the '70s and '80s). Today a huge fraction of students taking electronics have never played with (or been interested in playing with) electronics until they enrolled in their majors courses in college (and even then only a relatively few are actually personally interested in the stuff). My formal education in college stressed fundamentals by having us start with 7400 NAND gates and build many of the other SSI functions. The basic approach was that we could only use an IC as a building block if we had previously implemented its functionality using more basic blocks. I found this approach extremely effective as it allowed you to work with circuits at a reasonable level of abstraction -- something that translates very nicely to software development as well as many other areas. I never knew that things like microcontrollers even existed until my senior year when we worked with the MC68HC11 and, as a result, it was some time (a year or so) before I realized that the HC11 wasn't the simplest and cheapest microcontroller available. A huge portion of my education has come from just deciding that I would like to design and build something and them struggling to figure out how to actually do so; this is another thing that seems very different with today's students -- very few actually WANT to design and build things, even things that might be of interest to them. When I was an undergrad, I could always count on having company when I went into the labs to tinker on something personal (and the department encouraged us to do so).

I don't think proficiency with tubes is necessary any more. Few fields specialize in that any more.
TTL wasn't around in high school for me, but RTL was new. My first main frame computer didn't have an IC in it (Univac 1212). The time I spent in basics made TTL, CMOS and such a breeze to learn. Microcontrollers held few mysteries. I believe in basics first.
We find examples of those who missed the history trying to re-invent the past, imaging it progress.