I want 10,000 WOOOO!!! xD

*just spilt a box of M3 washers everywhere*

Having said that, I am very keen to get my hands on a PIC32 for the MIPS architecture. I hope that the acquisition of Hi Tech won’t mean that support for GCC falls by the wayside. Any thoughts on how the HT compiler compares against the alternatives? I always found GCC’s optimisation for ‘lesser’ architectures to be pretty woeful, though I would expect MIPS 4K to be a bit more robust as it’s still currently used in the real world.

Steve Sanghi has a clear opinion on development tools, you have to price them well enough so that the division stands on it’s own two feet financially, so the bean counters can’t come along and see the tools don’t make any money and hence won’t face to chop come end of year. I probably should have commented on this in the blog as well.

The fact is, if I say anything good about a company or a product, I’ll get accused of being a fanboy or being manipulated. And if I say anything bad I’ll be accused of unfairly bashing them by the fanboys, I can’t win. So I’ll just continue to not give a stuff and give my own opinion! :->

Microchip got a bloody nose when they tried to buy Atmel. And for sure the Microchip CEO will spin the events in his favor. Hint: If Atmel has so little to offer, why would Microchip want buy them in the first place?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Types-usb_new.svg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus

This is the new standard and will be very common on future cellphones etc.

Now, if my company ever come to me and say “right, we need to buy a PIC C compiler to do some work with”, who am I going to recommend? Well, the one I’m used to using of course!!!

Which one will I be used to using? The one I use for my hobby projects at home. So, Hi-Tech really should make their pricing attractive to hobbyists! They can keep their high price for the commercial version, fair enough, but give us hobbyists something we can use for cheap!
I found that the supported devices for the lite version was too restrictive. I think they should open this up to us at a more affordable price. Then perhaps I’d be recommending PICC to my bosses, because it really is a fantastic compiler in all honesty.

One comment about Hi-Tech’s PICC compiler:

I’d have to agree with you that Hi-Tech’s PICC compiler is absolutely brilliant (and I wasn’t actually aware that Microchip had bought them out) but I recently moved away from the PICC, mainly because it’s not very attractive in terms of pricing for the hobbyist. If you’re a business it’s probably not too expensive, but for an individual the price is pretty damn steep. Sure you can get the lite version for free (which is actually what I was using before I switched, and the only thing they take out of the lite version is optimisation which probably doesn’t make much difference for people like me), but sooner or later you find that you really want to use a specific PIC device and it isn’t supported by the Lite version of the software, which is an enormous pain in the butt. For ages I put up with choosing my devices such that they matched the compatibility list of the PICC-Lite compiler, but it really started to get on my nerves and yet I couldn’t justify paying that enormous price tag to get the standard or pro version.

So, in light of this, I’ve now switched to the BoostC compiler. It’s actually a very comprehensive compiler, and although I’m still getting used to it, so far I think it’s pretty good! I’m using it on my current project so perhaps I’ll let you know how I get on with it long term .

I was actually thinking of releasing my current project as a kit people can buy (when it’s done) and to that end I’ve purchased the pro version, which has no restrictions at all and allows commercial use (even though I’m only doing it as a hobby really) and all of this for about $150 I think. Well within the reach of us hobbyists. There are even cheaper versions too, if you don’t want the commercial licence.

So far thumbs up to the BoostC in terms of bang for buck in my opinion.

Keep up the blog – it’s going well.

Brian

Kat.