I have been looking hard for a Microchip-to-Parallax cross-assembler.
If anyone knows of one that actually works, please e-mail me.
Here is my unsuccessful experience so far with a program that is supposed
to do the job.

This week, I called Parallax and they kindly sent me a zipfile
"swapcode.zip" containing
swopcode.exe and swopcode.dat.
When I run swopcode.exe without command line parameters, it announces
(among other things):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SWOPCODE.EXE converts MICROCHIP PIC series assembler files from MICROCHIP's
MPASM.EXE assembler format to PARALLAX's assembler format and vice versa.
Source file type must be .LST, default destination file type is .CVT

Syntax:  SWOPCODE <srcfile> [destfile] [options]

Options: /16Cxx or /17C42  - Processor type (default=16C54)
...etc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sounds perfect! Just what I need.
When you run it WITH parameters, including a *.LST file assembled with
MPASM ver. 1.5,
it states more about itself, and then aborts with an error message:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PIC series source file bidirectional translator Version 1.02
(C) 1995 Craig Webb, licensed to PARALLAX, INC. (916) 624-8333
Translates between Parallax PASM & PASMX assemblers and Microchip's MPASM v2.0


Subscript out of range in line No line number in module SWOPCODE at address
0B29
:792B
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A minor point: I don't understand why this 1995 program refers to
"Microchip's
MPASM v2.0" when the current 1997 version is 1.5. The *.LST files start
with the line:
"MPASM 01.50 Released        (c)1993-97 Microchip Technology Inc./Byte
Craft Limi".

BTW, I tried deleting this first line ("MPASM v2.0 ...") from the *.LST
files I had tried.
Then swopcode seems to run and even produces an *.CVT file, BUT alas it
reports:
"Input file is neither Microchip's MPASM nor Parallax' assmebler .LST format.
Conversion aborted".

Does anyone know a) Craig Webb and/or his whereabouts, b) where there might
be a (MPASM 1.5 -) compatible version of swopcode or equivalent, or c) any
other way I can autoconvert Microchip code to Parallax? I want to do this
because I have many examples of Microchip code similar to my application,
which I want to produce in Parallax assembler (for now with PIC16C74,
involving ADC and serial i/o). (Since I am relatively new to PIC chips and
don't know the assembly languages very well yet, I'd like this shortcut to
get me moving  faster. FYI, the project involves interface devices for the
severely disabled; I have bought a Parallax programmer and a Clearview
Mathias emulator.)

Thanks for any advice.

Ed Lipson
edlipson@syr.edu