Do 8051/8031 Assembly Like Its 1984

boznz · 2025-12-11T00:41:46.000Z

Discussion: Do 8051/8031 assembly like its 1984

Posted23 days agoActive21 days ago

boznz

7 points

7 comments

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Retro ComputingAssembly LanguageMobile Hardware

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Discussion (7 comments)

Showing 13 comments

addaon

23 days ago

3 replies

Or like it's 2025. Plenty of current-production parts using an 8051 core as either their main sequencer, or as a low power core with bigger options on the main power rail.

snvzz

23 days ago

1 reply

8051 rapidly being replaced by RISC-V now.

addaon

23 days ago

1 reply

Can you give an example? I see RISC-V being used to replace custom 16 and 32 bit cores, and M0-class ARM cores, in the 10k+ gate range, but haven't really seen a migration in the 8 bit space.

hogehoge51

23 days ago

1 reply

I have personally ported a usb c usbpd stack from 8051 to cortex m0 to rv32ec. I can’t talk for gate count, it for code size the biggest factor was the compiler, with ARMCC giving the smallest code. As the rom was larger than the core, that was a bigger factor in gate count.

snvzz

22 days ago

rv32ec is indeed less dense than thumb2.

This is of course not the case anymore with the newer bitmanip and code size extensions, but it holds true for the older, crude rv32ec.

theamk

23 days ago

1 reply

[delayed]

iberator

22 days ago

Why not? I wrote a 6502 assembler a few months ago - despite being born decades too late It's fun

hogehoge51

23 days ago

It can be hidden away in SoC IP blocks, like DisplayPort blocks, too.

andrewstuart

23 days ago

1 reply

I was working on 8051 today.

It’s still alive and kicking.

iberator

22 days ago

1 reply

How does it compare to 6502, 6508, 68000 and Z80?

Is it easy to use? Or advanced-ish? For hobbysts

chinabot

21 days ago

If you work in C and are happy with the standard libraries and don't want to go too deep into the hardware then most of the 8-bit micros are pretty similar. During COVID and the component shortages I had to do a bit of swapping around, luckily it was all GPIO, I2C and UART stuff so nothing too taxing.

timonoko

23 days ago

Nothing 1984 about it.

Nuvoton N76E003AT20:

N76E003 – a 1T-8051 based series MCU, offers 18 KB Flash ROM, configurable Data Flash and 1 KB SRAM. It supports wide operating voltage of 2.4V to 5.5V, temperature range of -40℃ to 105℃, and high noise immunity of 7KV ESD and 4KV EFT.

$0.30 Add to the cart

boznzAuthor

23 days ago

[delayed]

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