Has anyone else noticed the AVR datasheets increasing to stupid sizes over the years ? Just bought some ATMega328P MCUs, went to download the datasheet and noticed it was ~35 Mbytes in size. Checked one or two others at random and noticed the ATmega6450A is 59.6Mbytes! Absolutely nuts. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Stupid sizes for AVR datasheets
Started by ●August 16, 2014
Reply by ●August 16, 20142014-08-16
Hi Simon, On 8/16/2014 5:37 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:> Has anyone else noticed the AVR datasheets increasing to stupid > sizes over the years ? > > Just bought some ATMega328P MCUs, went to download the datasheet > and noticed it was ~35 Mbytes in size. > > Checked one or two others at random and noticed the ATmega6450A > is 59.6Mbytes! > > Absolutely nuts.Unfortunately, many PDF authors just "point and click" to create their documents. Often, you can dramatically reduce the size of a document (PDF) by careful consideration of its content -- as well as the chosen authoring tool(s)! I was stunned, one day, to discover a final size of a simple document that was MUCH larger than I would have anticipated! On closer inspection, I discovered that one of the high resolution images that I had imported, panned and scaled (to highlight a particular SMALL PORTION of the image) was actually present IN ITS ENTIRETY in the PDF! Even the parts not intended to be "visible" in the document! Also, blindly including ENTIRE "fonts" (instead of risking them being absent from the user's system) can add a lot to the file's size (think about those docs that have notices in 5 different languages -- including non-european languages!). Documents that are intended to be viewed on a screen have different requirements than those intended to be printed. Color images take more space than monochromatic. The more colors, the more space! (do you really want a 24b TIFF embedded in the document? are you expecting the user to zoom to incredible levels and still preserve detail -- sometimes you do!) Supporting different PDF versions also comes at a cost. It's entirely likely that their document prep folks just have a canned way of creating ALL pubs. After all, storage and bandwidth are presumed to be FREE! :-/
Reply by ●August 18, 20142014-08-18
Simon Clubley schrieb:> Has anyone else noticed the AVR datasheets increasing to stupid > sizes over the years ? > > Just bought some ATMega328P MCUs, went to download the datasheet > and noticed it was ~35 Mbytes in size. > > Checked one or two others at random and noticed the ATmega6450A > is 59.6Mbytes! > > Absolutely nuts.Did you notice that the Atmel "complete" datasheets contain the complete reference manuals of the particular chips? Just have a look at the page count and the index... What other makers call "datasheet" is called "summary" at Atmel. These files are significantly smaller. Tilmann
Reply by ●August 18, 20142014-08-18
On 2014-08-18, Tilmann Reh <usenet2007nospam@autometer.de> wrote:> > Did you notice that the Atmel "complete" datasheets contain the complete > reference manuals of the particular chips? Just have a look at the page > count and the index... >Compare the size of Atmel's datasheets with those from Microchip which have comparable levels of detail. All the Microchip ones are _much_ smaller just like the Atmel ones used to be in older versions of the Atmel datasheets. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply by ●August 18, 20142014-08-18
Simon Clubley schrieb:> On 2014-08-18, Tilmann Reh <usenet2007nospam@autometer.de> wrote: >> >> Did you notice that the Atmel "complete" datasheets contain the complete >> reference manuals of the particular chips? Just have a look at the page >> count and the index... > > Compare the size of Atmel's datasheets with those from Microchip which > have comparable levels of detail. All the Microchip ones are _much_ > smaller just like the Atmel ones used to be in older versions of > the Atmel datasheets.Maybe they render their images differently... Efficiency (particularly for file sizes) is not commonly considered any more - not only with datasheets. :-( Tilmann
Reply by ●August 18, 20142014-08-18
On 2014-08-18, Tilmann Reh <usenet2007nospam@autometer.de> wrote:> Simon Clubley schrieb: >> >> Compare the size of Atmel's datasheets with those from Microchip which >> have comparable levels of detail. All the Microchip ones are _much_ >> smaller just like the Atmel ones used to be in older versions of >> the Atmel datasheets. > > Maybe they render their images differently... > > Efficiency (particularly for file sizes) is not commonly considered any > more - not only with datasheets. :-( >I've just sent them a support case pointing out how insane those sizes are. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply by ●August 19, 20142014-08-19
On 2014-08-18, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:> > I've just sent them a support case pointing out how insane those sizes > are. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. >Here's the response I got: |Hello Simon Clubley, | |Thank you for contacting Atmel Technical Support. | |We have informed your suggestion to the concern team, hope this will |be resolved soon. | |Thank you for your suggestion. Who knows, it might prompt someone to check their PDF creation settings. :-) Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply by ●August 19, 20142014-08-19
Yes, I think the images in the datasheet maybe is too large, and then the settings of the PDF convert/ create tools is not tuned properly. --------------------------------------- Posted through http://www.EmbeddedRelated.com
Reply by ●August 19, 20142014-08-19
On Tuesday, 19 August 2014 12:50:45 UTC+1, Simon Clubley wrote:> On 2014-08-18, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote: > > > > > > I've just sent them a support case pointing out how insane those sizes > > > are. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. > > > > > > > Here's the response I got: > > > > |Hello Simon Clubley, > > | > > |Thank you for contacting Atmel Technical Support. > > | > > |We have informed your suggestion to the concern team, hope this will > > |be resolved soon. >They certainly take customer service seriously; they have a whole team dedicated to being concerned.> | > > |Thank you for your suggestion. > > > > Who knows, it might prompt someone to check their PDF creation > > settings. :-) > > > > Simon. > > > > -- > > Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP > > Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply by ●August 19, 20142014-08-19
On 8/19/2014 9:43 AM, nahum.bush wrote:> Yes, I think the images in the datasheet maybe is too large, and then the > settings of the PDF convert/ create tools is not tuned properly.Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it. I'd rather have images in a PDF file that were large, but with sufficient detail that I can zoom in and see them clearly than to have a smaller file and not be able to read the fine print. I can't tell you how many times I have not been able to read text contained in a diagram or sometimes even the caption/title of the figure. -- Rick
