Don wrote:

     >If I were familiar with aome older version it wouldnt have been as
     >hard. How come the document files cant state which version they apply
     >to? From reading this list, It would seem that the stuff is full of
     >bugs, too many to recall and list here, and so, I wonder....Does
     >anyone know of a version that can be had which has few bugs, and has
     >matching documenttion??? Would it be the DOS version??????

     v3.99.06 is pretty solid.  With upcoming changes for MPLAB-ICE, the
     new emulator, some of the menus were changed and a few of the newer
     chips like the 12C508/509 lost some of their simulation ability, but
     generally, the development operations are better than ever.  We've
     used this version in seminars and labs, and it's getting heavy usage
     internally, so we are quite confident in its operation.

     Documentation is a huge problem.  The manual and on-line help are
     pretty good except for the areas with the old projects, which is now
     out of date and incorrect.  The on-line help points that out.  We are
     working on new User's Guides, new tutorials, and are improving the
     on-line help.

     The trickiest parts seem to be:
        - Project manager - see tutorial on the Microchip web page
        - Simulator stimulus - the on-line help is still the best info
                   here.  It's more recent than the User's Guide.
        - Simulator speed -  We're looking into speeding this up.
        - Linker - We've got new material coming soon.  You don't have
                    to use it now unless you're using MPLAB-C17.
        - PICSTART Plus updates -  Info is in README.PLS with the
                    downloaded MPLAB.  We've got some stuff that should
                    be posted on the web page soon, but it's basically
                    this same info, just more easily available.

     Using MPLAB is still the easiest way to use all components.  The
     editor, project manager, assembler, simulator are all rolled into this
     single environment, and if you're lucky enough to have an emulator
     --or plan to eventually get one-- it all works the same.  If you try
     to use the old DOS simulator, the learning curve is steeper, the tool
     is not up to date, and it is no longer supported.

     We welcome any and all questions and comments on the Microchip
     Development System Conference on the web page.  Go to
                www.microchip.com
     select "Knowledge Base" from the middle left menu, then scroll to the
     bottom of the page and click on "Development Tools Conference."
     Microchip systems and application engineers monitor these conferences
     daily and will respond to questions.  There's a lot of information
     already there, so you can look through the data to see if what's
     puzzling you has already been answered.

     See you there!

     Darrel Johansen