This isn't a rant or "Poor me," but sometimes things
just do not mesh like they should.

	Back in the better old days even computer users who are
blind could program PIC's using gputils and do as well as
anybody. I have been using gpasm, gpsim and it all worked
because it was just programming and, of course, debugging.

	I thought I would give mplab-x a try as I do have access
to a Mac and Mac's do work for persons who happen to be blind
due to an application called Voiceover which, if you have a Mac,
you can turn on with Command-F5. It reads the screen and works
well in many applications. That same key sequence also toggles
voiceover off so if you turned it on briefly and want things
back to normal, you can turn it off.

	After discovering that the stimulus function in gpsim
appears to have broken and knowing that modern is usually better
in technology, I downloaded the Mac version of mplab-x.

	It is dead on arrival as even the installer does not
produce any useful output to let one do anything. I hear a prompt for a
horizontal scroll bar, a vertical scroll bar and neither one
will open in to anything what so ever.

	This is the problem with GUI applications. So many
things must line up perfectly to make them work that it is a
miracle that they ever work. Most of those things have nothing
to do with the problem at hand, but if just one isn't right or
wasn't planned out just right, the whole process dies right then
and there.

	I can probably finish this last project without the
working simulator but it will be slower, of course.

	The lack of modern text-based development tools is really a
shame.

	Wow! As annoyed as I am right now, I managed to not go
in to rant mode or curse. Trust me. It's not far below the
surface.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ
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