Around 1983 when C++ had just been conceived and got its name, popular personal computer systems for a general audience, as well as businesses, had specifications like ones listed in the following table:
System | CPU | Clock speed (MHz) | RAM (KB) | ROM (KB) | Storage (KB) |
BBC Micro | 6502 (B+ 6512A) | 2 | 16-128 | 32-128 | Max 1,280 (ADFS floppy) Max 20 MB (hard drive) |
MSX | Zilog Z80 | 3.58 | 8-128 | 32 | 720 (floppy) |
Commodore 64 | 6510 | ~1 | 64 | 20 | 1,000 (tape) 170 (floppy) |
Sinclair ZX81 | Zilog Z80 | 3.58 | 1 | 8 | 15 (cartridge) |
IBM PC | Intel 8080 | 4.77 | 16-256 | 8 | 360 (floppy) |
Now compare these computer systems to a recent 8-bit microcontroller (MCU) such as the AVR ATMega 2560 with the following specifications:
- 16 MHz clock speed
- 8 KB RAM
- 256 KB ROM (program)
- 4 KB ROM (data)
The ATMega 2560 was launched in 2005 and is among the more powerful 8-bit MCUs available nowadays. Its features stack up favorably against the 1980s computer systems, but on top of that the MCU does not rely on any external memory components.
The MCU core clock speed is significantly...