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...
