The ICD2 interface is one of the most important thing to foster support for dsPIC and higher end 18F (like 18FUSB). Both the programmer interface and debug interface are important. AVR has a very good following in the hobbyists community because of the cross-platform support of programmers and debuggers. As much as I do not like to use AVR in my work, I do envy that they have so good support for hobbyists and open source community. Microchip is doing much better in the business front than Atmel. They can do better in the hobbyist front as well and I think they are willing to do it as well because they listen to all kinds of customers including students who will be the future business customers. For example, Microchip Singapore allows some universities and polytechnic institutes to build their own ICD/ICD2/Pickit and provide training for them. The developer of LPLAB has to use reverse-engineering method to get some information of ICD2 programmer interface. If the API/protocol is known, maybe he already come out a working versions. It is for both Linux and Windows. Microchip is allowing third-party compilers to be plugged into MPALB. Actually there is a plugin for gputils as well. However it is a beta. To allow for third-party plugin for programmers will not be a problem for Microchip does not distribute the plugins. The users are installing the plugins from third parties like HiTech (PICC). So third-party developers should take care of their plugins. However Microchip should open the APIs. MPLAB is one of the driving force for Microchip's success. From MPLAB 4 to MPLAB 5 to MPLAB 6/7 and you see Microchip jumps to No 1 position in 8-bit MCU market and their market capital now is about 6.46 Billion, 7 times of Atmel which has a much higher revenue than Microchip. Regards, Xiaofan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Byron A Jeff" Newsgroups: gmane.comp.hardware.microcontrollers.pic Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 11:00 PM Subject: Re: [PIC] dsPIC for hobbyists >> interfaces! >> - MLAB <-> ICD2 interface (RS232/USB) >> - MLAB <-> third party programmer software > > Ah! I see. Both of those are Windows specific AFAICT. So they > are outside of my scope. > > Would the MPLAB to ICD2 interface help in developing ICD2 > host software for Linux? > >... > Of course. I'd be interested to see if MChip thought there was any > benefit in having an MPLAB benefit to 3rd party programmers. As I've > stated earlier, I'd be leery of that if I were them. Because as soon > as some 3rd party programmer doesn't work with MPLAB, customers will > be ringing up or E-mailing MCHIP to ask why it doesn't work. If I were > Mchip, that certainly wouldn't be a beneficial thing, considering that > MPLAB isn't a direct profit center for them. > > BAJ -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist