"O'er the RAM parts we watched were so gallantly streaming..."

Hmmm, the Brits were launching those rockets' red glare of which Francis Scott Key wrote. Must have been an argument about Embedded Control. :-)

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Matt, case in point: I designed my product with 128Kx8 Ram in the proof of concept stage. I now sell a product line with no external ram. Better algorithms made it go away.

In your audio design under recent discussion, I would agree that since you are supporting at most 4K ports, you need at least that many storage locations to define each current state.

The question is, "Does each port need a table, or merely a state variable?"

Often a little knowledge of diffential equations and automata theory can lead you to an algorithm that requires only a function of a few state variables and only they need to be stored for each port.

If you design a product for ultimate flexibility, you often have to back out that flexibility by adding user tools to simplify their use of the controls. In effect, this removes the capability so carefully added during design and programming.

Of course there are applications where lots of RAM will be the fastest way to market... I just submit its almost always more than is needed. If it doesn't affect the profits much... its no problem. For me, I made my entire external memory circuitry go away.

-Jay C. Box