>For $795, I could get a PIC emulator for that price. Thats the biggest
>ripoff for a compiler, even for industrial use.
>
>Neil Gandler

I can't say I agree Neil. A commercial grade compiler is one of the main
limiting factors affecting what a product can do when constrained to small
data and program memory sizes. An emulator simply affects how long the
development and qualification of firmware takes.

I've used MPC now since it came out. I use it for every PIC project I
develop. It supports ANSI C and embedded MPASM assembler instructions (MPASM
is embedded within it). Hence, I've never had to use another assembler.

ByteCraft has taken its sweet time in fixing MPC bugs. Seems like once they
fix one, another one shows up. But I've learned how to use it to produce
stable code, and in fact I love it! It saves me countless hours in
development, which help keep me competitive as a consultant.

The bugs can be worked around. The only other 'problem' is that it generates
redundant page selects. A recent calculation indicates that approximately 8%
of PIC16C84 code space is taken up with them! Microchip has promised to fix
that problem, and correct the bugs as well.

As for price... Any other microcontroller C compiler (Avocet systems, etc.)
would be significantly more expensive. Its the cost of professional development.

MPC works well with the Advanced Transdata RICE16 emulators, with windowed
source code debugging.

I will be upgrading to MPLAB-C, which had a release date of June 15/1996.

Regards, Dana Frank Raymond
dfr@icom.ca