On 2006-02-17, Henry wrote:

In researching different microcontrollers on different sites, one made the
staement that their microcontroller can be re-programmed up to about 1000
times. Sounds like alot at first, but it you are trying 10-20 programs a day
(experiments from a book with your own variations, etc) then that does not
give one more than several months of use until the microcontroller might
need replacing.

several months is about right I think the intention is that after you get
it doing the task you want you leav it installed and buy a fresh one to
play with... if the part costs less than $10 that's not a big issue...

I have seen this mention of 1000 reprogramings on only one
site.

Atmel?

Is this as limit of this specific microcontroller, or are all
microcontrollers like this and simply dont mention it?

Some can only be programmed once.

some trainer kits use external static ram to hold the program so you can
reprogram any number of times. (but loose the program when the power goes off)

I understand that
flash memory has a limited number of rewrites. There are articles about how
digital camera flash memory cards can be (re-)used about 10,000 times.
Although some manufactures say that their cards can be re-used one million
times.

I am considering getting the Basic Stamp "board of education" kit. It seems
pretty complete, kit wise, and seems well documented.

IIRC the basic stamp uses an interpreter in ROM to execute code loaded into
its EEPROM, EEPROM seems to offer more rewrites than flash.

Bye.
Jasen