2026-09-24 16:29 UTC
There’s plenty of middle ground. We had integrated circuits embedded in circuit boards for a long time before re-programmable chips started appearing, and those ones certainly didn’t connect to the Internet and brick themselves.
Replies (1)
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@Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 2026-09-24 21:16
PICs are cheaper than discrete ICs, even if they’re programmed only once and shipped. This is why you’ll see mainboards with un-populated sections - the processor has a software build that either excludes the un-populated parts or is designed to detect and ignore them. A discrete IC would need far more engineering to be able to selectively ignore, or each model would need it’s own discrete IC.