I think my top level post here reads overly critical.
I'll say that I think what you're covering is very good material, in that some of the most difficult "first steps" is convincing the student to finally push the "buy" button and actually get a PCB shipped to them.
In the great scheme of things, beginners don't need the newest chips, so you're right. But... I dunno. If they're bothering to build their own PCBs, then at that point they're likely ready to appreciate these benefits from the more recent chips.
One of the biggest problems with recent ATtinys and older ATMega328pb chips is the variable clock rate. If you run at 1.8V, you can only run at 4MHz and the code will be unstable at 20MHz. Keeping track of this changing voltage is... annoying. And its wasteful: If you can run at 24MHz at 1.8V (like these more recent AVR128DB32 chips), then you can get both performance and low-power compared to being forced to run at 5V.
Or alternatively, you can run at 5V and get the full benefits (lower noise, more robustness, easier integration with 4.5V level MOSFETs instead of 3.3V or lower voltage MOSFETs)
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But you're right. There are benefits to using a decade old chip for educational purposes. But I still feel like encouraging pcb-designers (even at the beginner level) to use the most recent set of chips is half the fun. Newer chips really have some very nice features that make life a lot easier.
I'll say that I think what you're covering is very good material, in that some of the most difficult "first steps" is convincing the student to finally push the "buy" button and actually get a PCB shipped to them.
In the great scheme of things, beginners don't need the newest chips, so you're right. But... I dunno. If they're bothering to build their own PCBs, then at that point they're likely ready to appreciate these benefits from the more recent chips.
One of the biggest problems with recent ATtinys and older ATMega328pb chips is the variable clock rate. If you run at 1.8V, you can only run at 4MHz and the code will be unstable at 20MHz. Keeping track of this changing voltage is... annoying. And its wasteful: If you can run at 24MHz at 1.8V (like these more recent AVR128DB32 chips), then you can get both performance and low-power compared to being forced to run at 5V.
Or alternatively, you can run at 5V and get the full benefits (lower noise, more robustness, easier integration with 4.5V level MOSFETs instead of 3.3V or lower voltage MOSFETs)
--------------
But you're right. There are benefits to using a decade old chip for educational purposes. But I still feel like encouraging pcb-designers (even at the beginner level) to use the most recent set of chips is half the fun. Newer chips really have some very nice features that make life a lot easier.