Roman wrote:

>Ha ha! :o) Thanks Mike, it's really not fear holding me back
>but TIME. You are right in saying I need to make a living
>in years to come, BUT i'm not a windows programmer. I'm a
>hardware developer first, and embedded programmer second,
>and only really code PC apps as simple support tools to make
>my real work easier. I agree that learning to code large
>windows databases and web-based apps would give future income
>opportunities but that is not what I need. I need to be able
>to throw together simple apps that communicate to the screen
>and ports, and .net etc really doesn't cut it.
>
><rant>
>Ive been busy playing with Delphi for a couple of days and
>ordered C++ Builder personal to check that out too. The other
>thing that annoys me is that you can no longer buy a copy
>of Borland compiler to make small simple apps. The only
>commercial one is $2000 AUD and my Borland rep's argument was
>based around how great it would be to be able to build huge
>web-enabled applications with minimal effort. So what?
>Reading the blurbs for the new Borland products shows
>about 80% of the "benefits" are these new web based and
>database features. Features I just don't want or need.
>Probably 80% of what i'll have to pay is for things I
>don't want. </rant>
>-Roman

   I am happy to see your " Ha ha! :o) ", but still I can't catch
the idea what do you want and what don't

   You need "simple support tools to make your real work easier".
   You need to "communicate to the screen and ports"
   You need not to dig in programming deeply, since you
      are "a hardware developer first"
   Delphi and C++ Builder are simple enough for you,
      yet MS Visual Studio is too complex. Maybe I am missing, that
      app size is critical, but who cares of kilobytes now?

   From this , as for me, MS Office  is a point to start with. It has a lot
of tools to handle and show your data on a screen in a graphical or text mode.
It has been designed for this.

   Still it can comunicate to PC Com port through Microsoft
Communications Controle (I checked it in Excel XP). The controle
works in both polling and event driving style. To handle that dying
legacy LPT port there are many ways, I didn't try them. Anyway, USB
is coming ( has come ). Even for Com port you may add data buffering
to your PIC-based hardware, to solve transmition speed bottleneck.

   Besides, investing your time this way, you get a solid platform for the
future. I don't know whether you want to distribute .exe. Why not to distribute
.doc, .xls, ... Who has not MS Office installed on his computer now.

   Mike :>) Ukraine.

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