> Free XC8 is a bit of a "special case" as it appears to have been delibera=
tely
> crippled to generate superfluous instructions.

I believe that Microchip have now changed this.=20

It wasn't that it generated superfluous instructions, the problem was it ju=
st didn't do any optimisation at all. This left crazy code which in some in=
stances had no hope of working as the code writer intended.

There were so many complaints and examples of code that didn't work at all =
in this mode on the microchip forums that I believe the free mode now does =
a minimal optimisation so that any code generated will at least work in the=
 way the code writer intended.

I would be interested to hear about any experiments that anyone has done to=
 verify if this is the case.

> The free XC16 and XC32 comilers are _much_ more useable - a few samples
> of XC32 code I compared were only 10-15% smaller and/or faster
>=20
> PIC24 or 32 would be worth a look, as most have multiple UARTs & SPIs, an=
d
> some FIFOs. I think there are a few  5V PIC24' s now.

Yes the PIC24FV family runs at 5V Vcc. This family is also available in DIP=
 packages.


> Peripherals & tools will be _much_ more familiar to an 8-bit PIC user tha=
n
> anything from another manufacturer
>=20
>=20
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