Myke, Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to answer some of your questions: 1. We have not tested on OS2. We know it runs on Win 3.1, 3.11, and '95. 2. Use the Watch windows to make customized register displays. Currently, we show the values of registers in all formats. Support for other data types will be added at some point in the future. 3. Processor Options should be saved. We'll look at that and make sure it gets fixed in a future release. 4. "PPLUS301.EXE" and "PMSTR300" are the .DLL files that support the new PICSTART Plus Universal Device Programmer, and the PICMASTER emulator in the new version of MPLAB. These need to be installed after MPLAB only if you have these development systems. 5. Updated manual should be on the Web and BBS soon (if not already) in .PDF format. New manuals are shipping with PICSTART Plus. 6. A separate MPSIM manual will not be available. What we've done is combined MPLAB IDE, Project, Editor, and Simulator into a single manual since that is the "core" common software now for all Microchip development systems. This manual is very similar to the on-line help of MPLAB, but fleshed out with more screen-shots. 7 Currently there are no plans to pull PICSTART 16B or 16C into the MPLAB IDE. We appreciate the comments and compliments , and are glad that you find the new products useful. Darrel Johansen ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Initial MPLAB Comments Author: myke predko at Internet_Exchange Date: 5/22/96 1:29 PM Hi Folks, I just downloaded the latest version of MPLAB and tried it out. I really wanted it for the integrated Simulator, so my initial comments will pretty much be totally directed toward this. 1. MP-SIM does not run proplerly in the WIN-OS2 Session of OS/2 Warp. MPASMWIN and the Editor and other functions of MPLAB seem to work okay, but MP-SIM does not. I killed about an hour trying different options until I shut down OS/2 and booted Windows 3.11. 2. Is there any way to customize the register display? I'm asking this from two different perspectives. The first is just to display the Registers (RAM and otherwise) that you want, rather then them all and having to scroll through them. The second is to allow the user to specify one single format for the Register contents, rather than show every different (decimal, binary, and hex) type. I like to display the data differently depending on the Register. I may be weird, but I liked to create custom MPSIM.INI Files for each project I was working on; I found it made monitoring what was going on a lot easier. 3. The Processor Options (ie type) are not saved with the Project, is it possible (in the next upgrade) to include this as well. 4. What are the "PPLUS301.EXE" and "PMSTR300" files in the .zip file used for? I presume that "PPLUS301" is an upgrade for the PICStart Plus Package? 5. When will an updated manual be available? I do have the current manual, but I would like to see one with the updated features included. 6. Will there be a separate MP-SIM Manual made available? This would help avoid a lot of the problems I had initially. A tutorial (in "help", like the code assembly tutorial) would be nice as well. 7. Will there be a PICStart B and C Interface to MPLAB? Or, is there an interface for other Programmer Software? Now, having said all this, I have to say that I LOVE MPLAB! (So much so, I just ordered a PicStart Plus for pick up at the Seminar next week.) Features that I like: 1. In the editor, you actually use a mono-spaced font (my biggest complaint about "Write"-like editors for Windows that use a porportionally spaced font which looks crappy for code). 2. The executing code can be related to in the source (I hated MPSIM's single line interface). 3. Projects and only having to start one program from Windows. 4. Basic Register Contents on Bottom Line during Simulation Execution. (Including Processor Execution (Carry, Zero, Digit Carry) Flags.) I'm really pleased at how well everything goes together with this program. I have only tried it out on the "Tutor.asm" that it comes with and an assembler file that I created, but I am definitely moving to it from MPASM and MPSIM and the editor I was using. For the Microchip people: I'm really impressed with the level of support you give for your products. In my job, I work with other Micro-Controller manufacturers and the support and tools that you provide are defintely head and shoulders above them! Myke Myke "We're Starfleet officers, weird is part of the job." Capt. Catherine Janeway