It’s Thursday, so what better day to go back, way back to the first AVR device? The ceramic sample, equipped with an AT90S1200, was initially created to demonstrate the speed of the AVR in comparison to other 8-bit architectures, namely PIC, 8051 and HC05. In fact, this was also the first actual prototype of the board, which would later go on to spur an entire Maker Movement.
Interestingly enough, one of our engineers had stumbled upon the original production board from 1997. And to some surprise, the MCU still works — as you can see in the GIF below. What you’ll notice is that the AVR finishes first, obviously, followed by PIC, HC05 and finally the 8051. This just goes to show the low power consumption of the iconic, and now old-school, 8-bit chip.
A decade later, in 2008, Atmel would pay homage to the demo kit with the launch of the RetroKit. Who remembers this?
