At 07:32 AM 3/11/98 +0200, you wrote:

>whilst the ICEPIC is also an excellent
>emulator and the service is good, the service provided for the PICmaster
>is incredible (here, at least).

Yes.  I should have mentioned this.  If you have a relationship with a
local uChip distributor, you can get much better service from them.
Advanced Transdata gladly turned around my last repair in a day, and sent
it by fedex, but it still took 2 days because they're in Texas.  If those 2
days matter to you, then call your local distributor and see what they can
promise.

BTW, to bridge this kind of emergency, and just to validate stuff like
power-on sequences and chip-to-chip variations, you should always have a
handful of JW (ceramic, windowed) parts even if you have an emulator.
Although it is not specified, about 80% of them (16c74a-jw, at least) work
correctly with sub-5v supplies.  Microchip's low-voltage parts (16LC74a)
are just normal parts binned according to their tolerance of low voltage
supplies.  Or maybe the normal parts are binned according to their
non-tolerance ? :-)

>Again, MPC is the *only* single compiler that supports *all* the PICsand
works
>well in MPLAB without workarounds. The price difference
>is recouped quickly if you take into account all the time spent on finger
>troubles every time you switch to a new project.

Yes. Good point. I agree. Note that MPC is a
microchip-supplied-and-modified version of the Bytecraft compiler, which
has now diverged from the original, although its still pretty close.  If
you're using absolutely new chips from Microchip, then you are forced to
use picmaster/picstart/mpc because they are the reference tools.

In my experience, both CCS and Bytecraft supported the latest new chip I
needed (16c77) at the same time, about the time that it became generally
available, August '97.  But note that CCS did so with their shipping
version (2.459), and Bytecraft supplied a beta version (1.3 beta) that is
_still_ not available except by special request!  The picstart and
picmaster supported the chip as soon as I could get part samples from
microchip in early '97, so although I don't use MPC I assume support was
immediate.

Note that Microchip's preference of the PCM/Bytecraft compiler has changed
recently (from www.microchip.com/promos/hitech.html):

>Microchip recommends the HI-TECH PICC compiler as the preferred compiler
>solution for the PIC16Cxx mid-range (14-bit instruction) family products.
Both
>Microchip and HI-TECH will provide technical assistance on the PICC
>compiler.

Any Hi-Tech users out there want to comment on support of new chips, etc?

>But there will still be as many opinions as list members, which is as it
>should be.

Agreed. :-)

Regards,

Bart

====Bart Addis====================================================
                             Software Engineering/Hardware Design
                             Voice 610-974-8870, Fax 8890
====bart@fast.net=================================================