[avrdude-dev] Does anybody still use the erase cycle counter?

[Joerg Wunsch]

The erase cycle counter feature (options -y and -Y) looked quite
reasonable with the first AVRs.  Their flash ROM had been spec'ed for
only 1000 erase cycles, even though already Brian's first tests (after
implementing these options) resulted in an AT90S1200 showing failures
only after some 170000 (IIRC) erase cycles.

These days, with page-programmable memory, and with software
breakpoints potentially rewriting single flash pages quite frequently,
I think that feature has outgrown the reasons for its creation (to
make sure you wouldn't ship a device that is already close to the
supposed end of its flash life).  Still, we read the last four EEPROM
cells on each AVRDUDE startup, and display their contents as an
integer if they are not 0xffffffff.

I wonder whether it's rather time to remove that feature again, or
anybody would still be using it?

-- 
cheers, J"org               .-.-.   --... ...--   -.. .  DL8DTL

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/                        NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)