At 09:22 AM 5/22/96 -0400, you wrote:
>At 7:47 PM 5/21/96, Dave wrote:
>>
>>Actually, it may be possible (anything is) but I can't see a uC doing
>>anything the host computer could do much better (string manipulation,
>>modem config, dialing, etc.)  Why not poll your uC for information
>>when needed then do what is required, then send it to the user?
>
>
>This is not a pet project for Saturday afternoon hackers. My data
>acquisition system will have several hundred thousand ( 100,000 ) sensors
>around the world. I don't want to "poll" them nor can I tolerate a PC's
>size, complexity, temperature rating and cost.
>
>So my question remains, do the current C compilers have the capability for
>string manipulation that I've previously mentioned or should I stick with
>assembly?

I don't have experience with the PIC C compilers (haven't been able to
justify the cost yet), but if I were attempting this with several thousand
sensors to support, I would much rather do it in C if I could live with the
overhead (sounds like you can).  Even if the C compiler doesn't have the
string manipulation libraries, it shouldn't be too hard to add them, or find
the source for them.  With that many systems to support, and possibly that
many ISP configurations, IMHO C would save time and money.  The cost of the
C compiler over the thousands of units would be small, and should be easily
justified.

Norm