Andy,

As the producer of the PCB/PCM/PCW C compilers for the PIC and a
member of this PICLIST wanted to reply to your recent PICLIST
posting concerning our compiler.

Since we couldn't find you in our customer list we assume that perhaps
you have our compiler confused with the CC5X compiler also mentioned
interchangeably in the e-mail.

Just to clarify the situation, the CCS compilers are FULL C compilers
(NOT a "Baby-C") except that they do not have the full standard C
library (such as file I/O) and the types are limited to 1,8,16 bit
(no 32 bit and no floating point).  Instead of the standard library
we supply a PIC specific library.

As for your comparison of MPC/LAB-C and ours you have it backwards.
Those compilers are a C Subset.  To prove it try multi-dimensional
arrays, more than two parameters to a function, multi-bit fields
inside structures or simply arrays of structures in MPC/LAB-C.
 You will find MPC/LAB-C falls far short of a "real" compiler and
except for standard library functions the CCS compilers are  "real"
C compilers.

The CCS compilers do have full 16 bit arithmetic.  In fact, types of
1,8 and 16 bit are supported where in MPC/LAB-C you can manipulate
a bit of a byte but there is not a true one bit type.

As for the optimization, the more inexpensive PCB/PCM do have areas
where the optimization could be better (PCW does have a higher level
of optimization) but they always produces less code than MPC/LAB-C.
Note that the CCS compilers go to great extent to re-use RAM between
functions that are not executing at the same time.  This is something
a MPC/LAB-C programmer has to do by hand if at all.

The CCS compilers were designed to get people up an running with a new
project as fast as possible.  The easy to use built in functions, such
as RS-232, I/O including formatted printf,  go a long way to
accomplishing this as do the large number of examples.  You can download
our library of example code from http://www.execpc.com/~ccs/download
(Leave the ref# blank and select EXAMPLES) to see the simple but
powerful applications.

It seems we have done a good job of meeting our customer needs since
with over 3000 compilers sold less than 10 have been returned and
customer surveys are almost 100% positive.  The product is always being
updated with new features suggested by customers and we do our best to
respond to customer problems ASAP.  With a product such as this the more
customers there are the better the product becomes due to the large
number of customers giving the product a good "workout."  The low cost
has helped us to build this large customer base.  Do not be tricked into
believing that a higher cost product is better (or even nearly as good).

I don't mean to sound so negative about your e-mail.  I suspect you just
have us confused with another product.  We are most happy to receive
user criticism since this helps us to make our better product, however
it is disturbing when mis-information about the product is so widely
distributed.

If you have further questions about our products feel free to contact me
or visit our web site at http://www.execpc.com/~ccs/picc.html


Regards,

Mark Siegesmund
CCS