> Hi All,
>
> I normally program in asm but are looking for a rapid development
language.
> It is important that I can write USB code for the 16c745, I know I will
> still have to edit the HID description etc manually but are looking for
some
> way to speed things up a little.
>
> I have found at least two PICBASIC compilers on the net, Proton and MEL.
Are
> there others?
> Is there a clear winner in feature or performance (such as code size
etc)?
> I would prefer to pay for a commercial product to get ongoing
development.
> Cost is not important (within reason!).
>
> I am trying to avoid C if I can, I already know how to write Basic or
> Pascal.
>
> regards
>
>
> Lee McLaren

Well, I've used PBP from MEL for about a year now. And until last week I'd
have recommended it without a thought. But a recent thread on the PBP list
about "desired features" led me to take a good look at Proton+. As I
understand it Proton+ has (and PBP doesn't) real function calls, 32 bit
variables and floating point support.

That's probably not enough to make me switch now, but I'll definitely keep
an eye on it.

The downside of PBP is they seem to be very slow at releasing new features,
and not many people are fond of their upgrade policy. (IIRC $25 for every
upgrade, and you have to mail them your ORIGINAL disks, then they mail you
an upgrade)

The proton+ web site advertises free upgrades, but I've not actually dealt
with them.

PBP is by far the more common product, and you'll find much more in the way
of third party support and examples from other users.

PBP is a command line only compiler. MEL makes an add on IDE, but microCode
Studio is a better tool. It's about $45, but it gives you bootloaders for
all the capable chips and an in circuit debugger. (it's not hardware like a
microchip ICD or ICD 2, it's resident software and the same serial
connection as the bootloader uses.) Not as effective as a hardware ICD, but
useful for setting breakpoints and watching variables and the like. Others
might shy away from a bootloader, but for me at least, it accelerates the
development cycle by several orders of magnitude. Right now I can hit the
compile/download button and have code running on my chip in about 20
seconds.

As to the USB, I've not used it in the MEL product, and I've not seen any
mention of it in conjunction with proton+, so I can't be much help there.
But it does seem that the basic consensus is that the Microchip USB chips
are sorely lacking when compared to other vendors products, I haven't seen
many projects use them.

Hope that helps some.
-Denny

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