gnupic: Re: [gnupic] the best software for manage PICs in Linux
Subject:
Re: [gnupic] the best software for manage PICs in Linux
From:
"David Barnett" ####@####.####
Date:
7 Jun 2007 21:32:01 +0100
Message-Id: <00c001c7a942$41109550$0d01a8c0@barnett2>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jay Dagenais" ####@####.####
To: ####@####.####
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 2:54 PM
Subject: RE: [gnupic] the best software for manage PICs in Linux
> Hi guys, just was reading through these posts and am going through similar
> woes right now myself- I am searching for the best C(and cpp?) compiler
> targeted for the pic (16f and 18f series) that is completely free and full
> featured (as possible)? windows or linux not a problem, a full ide would
> be great but doesn't have to have...anyone?
Microchip provides the C18 compiler which targets the 18f series, but
nothing comparable for the 16f series. For a free C compiler, as I said, I
think sdcc is your only choice. I believe there's an MPLAB plugin for sdcc
so you can use the Windows build of sdcc under MPLAB if you like MPLAB as an
IDE.
> What ever happened to the c2c compiler? was it sold to sourceboost or
> matrix multimedia and is no longer supported freely? that is what I
> gathered- it seemed to be a popular choice and I have lots of example
> snippets written with it, so perhaps a compiler which will easily support
> compiling the c2c code without much modification?
Yes, I think Sourceboost owns c2c. They develop the BoostC compiler, which
is probably more compatible with c2c than anything else will be.
> from what I have learned of C (for pc's) is that it was intended to be
> easily portable but it doesn't seem to be the case when dealing with
> micros,, I guess this is much in part to each vendors library
> implementations? or are there more underlying and deeper issues to address
> when considering porting blocks to other compilers?
There are definitely special challenges supporting C for MCU targets,
particularly with pointers. If you're curious about it, the original author
of sdcc wrote an article about some of those challenges:
http://www.circuitcellar.com/SA/Articles2/Dutta-121.pdf.
However, I think the biggest hindrance for PIC C compilers is supply and
demand: it's a fairly limited market compared to some, especially when you
spread the user base across so many different models of PIC. OTOH, the
tools that are available are quite usable, even if there's plenty of room
for improvement.
David Barnett
