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Hello list, Recently I and luke exchanged a set of emails on the above topic and luke suggested to bring the discussion on list. I originally sent it off list to avoid adding more off topic discussion, but luke advised that: "It's very diverse, and concerns the *development* of laptops - and hardware."

So, here's the refresher (I'm not going to quote all of it because it's not worth it to you or anyone). There's still room for much discussion on the subject.

luke, if my attempted condensed form does not capture your intentions perfectly be sure to send my terminal SIG666 and scream loudly. ;-)

As a direct result of Trump's tariffs I find myself needing to buy myself a few uCs now instead of later [1]. The problem is, though I do know a lot about electricity I know relatively little about integrated circuits. I've got a long road ahead filled with lots of reading to get there.

If you have any other suggestions, I'm also listening.

Luke pointed out that "pricing on things like STM32Fs is so low, it's not worth worrying about." I answered, "Call me pathetic, but 25% is still 25% no matter the starting cost. There's also the concern that if the uC demand reduces then the price will rise as the companies strive to make up for lost profits and then demand will further drop... and development will stall..."

Luke recommended the STM32F lineup supported by lubopencm3, which I already had my eyes on, and said that the AVR lineup was yucky.

Since then I discovered that there is a third choice of uCs. They use the LX6 32bit microprocessor at 160-240MHz, which is pretty fast. Here's wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32 Lots of links to docs here: http://esp32.net/ Git hub has lots of code: https://github.com/espressif Official docs: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/

What's strange about them is that they have not released the ISA docs yet for the LX6 core in spite of GCC 5.2 supporting it. GCC 7 and 8 support is experimental. https://github.com/espressif/crosstool-NG/pull/2 https://esp32.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6477 https://www.esp32.com/viewtopic.php?t=293 I did double check that this is still the case: https://esp32.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11908

My intentions in purchasing are two fold: I'll probably be using a uC for a keyboard on my own laptop, and I had hoped to build an Opensource oscilloscope/logic analyzer several years from now. This is not to mention the usefulness which uCs can be in general.

Luke pointed out, "that's a different matter: that's pretty hard-core ADC territory. 100mhz and above, with 16-bit accuracy and above: realistically, only Analog Devices covers that ground, and a standard low-cost uC would not in any way be able to cope with the amount of data generated."

That exact use case has a large following (179 articles on hackaday alone): https://hackaday.com/tag/oscilloscope/ And here's a really cool project using SDRAM: https://hackaday.com/2016/07/19/hackaday-prize-entry-the-cheapest-logic-anal...

Here are some "professional" ones. ATXMEGA32A4U uC powered: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/920064946/xminilab-portable-oscilloscop... https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/920064946/xprotolab-portable

Here are some not using uCs: Xilinx spartan3A FPGA: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/751733865/smartscope-reinventing-the-os... Luke kindly pointed out that this is FPGA powered: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/201461162/unoprologic2-ultra-low-cost-o... MIPS arch (has higher clocks then your typical uC): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/oscope/mutliplatform-multi-os-oscillosc...

Lastly and I've no idea what powers this one, even after reading the datasheet's summery: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/342199468/openscope-instrumentation-for...

If you've got anything to add, as always, thank you, David

[1]: I get it, tariffs work for steel, but not so well for computers, as bunnie explains it's a much much more dangerous game: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/12/business/us-steel-mill/ https://www.nasdaq.com/article/nucor-to-build-135-billion-steel-plate-mill-i... https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5349 I read that they would affect SBCs on linuxgizmos and guessed they'd affect uCs before too long also: http://linuxgizmos.com/introduction-to-catalog-of-125-linux-hacker-boards/ What's really strange is that he's targeting the maker community vs. only the big companies like ASUS, i.e. he's not set a small quantity limit on the tariffs (though big companies would probably try to maneuver into such an exception).