I will limit myself to commenting on the usefulness of the
language itself - others may be able to answer you other
questions.

I use the PBC (PicBasic Compiler).
PBC is quite good at doing what it was intended to do -
which is implementing the BASIC Stamp 1 instruction set with
some extra features and only one significant omission. In
this role it lets you produce cheaper projects and the code
runs much faster because it is compiled rather than
interpreted. The missing feature is the debug command which
on the Stamp sends information back to the PC. They explain
why they omitted it but it would still have been of some
use.

The biggest limitations of the programs that you can write
if you don't resort to machine code is that they "can't walk
and chew gum at the same time" - each instruction ties the
processor up for its entirety with no ability to multi-task
in any way. The timer and interrupts are not accessible in
pure BASIC. This means that if you use a "PAUSE 100" command
to pause for 100 milliseconds the processor will sit and
twiddle its thumbs for this period. If you have for example
a keypress etc in this time you miss it. You can of course
write your code to compensate. A more fatal flaw (which may
perhaps be overcome in later versions?) is that the eg
serial in routine waits forever for a character with no way
of breaking out of the loop. If there isn't a character to
receive or if your hardware is faulty your program is
trapped at this point forever. This is probably mainly due
to PBC slavishly copying the original STAMP definition. I
have heard here of someone who modified the PBC code to
allow a break function. Code modification is easy as the
commands are implemented in 2 .inc files in source code. You
can edit these (at your risk) to make the code to do
anything you wish.

The saving grace of all this is that you can call machine
language routines whenever you want to do more complex
things. It MAY be possible to implement interrupts and timer
actions in the background by staying away from commands
which use the timer. I haven't tried this yet but intend to.
I have written a simple but useful product for the
disability market using solely PBC. I may go to assembler in
future versions of the product to improve a time critical
feature.

You can view the compiled code (in assembler source) and
compare it to your basic source code. This can be useful for
learners.

At $US100 the program is probably acceptably priced (cheaper
is always better :-))
They also have a newer (and dearer) "Professional" version
which has many more features. I don't know if they have
taught it to walk and chew gum as well (ie added interrupts
and timer based facilities) - they will be able to tell you
no doubt.


-----Original Message-----
From: Oliver Praudisch <oliverp@GTE.NET>
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Saturday, 14 March 1998 13:25
Subject: ME Labs pic basic compiler


>Hi,
>
>I am looking at the pic basic compiler from Micro
Engineering Labs. This
>will be my first time playing with micro controllers. I am
hoping that the
>basic compiler will allow me to see cause and effect within
the assembly
>language. As well as get started a bit faster since I have
only some
>experiance with basic.
>
>
>Are any of you using the basic compiler from ME Labs?
>
>Does it get in the way of any of the possibilities that the
pic is capable
>of?
>
>Do any of you who use Pic Basic Compiler use it with some
of the home made
>programmers out there?
>
>Does ME Labs have good tech support once you purchase there
product? I
>spoke with them today and they seemed friendly and willing
to answer many
>of my extra questions not directly pertaining to the sale
of there
>products.
>
>thanx,
>