Trimble M3 Total Station Software' title='Trimble M3 Total Station Software' />Sharing My Passion for Electronics Engineering and Software Hacking. So before I get underway, this article is about Microchip PIC micro controllers. FSBu1Iv8Dy8/WHOmuCs01zI/AAAAAAAAA2Y/JDWS8dHbPeMt3CRyG10GSg65cPL5yUadACJoC/w530-h487-n/a1ce6a44-0459-46d6-9936-3af2fe404f71' alt='Trimble M3 Total Station Software' title='Trimble M3 Total Station Software' />Please understand I dont want to get into a flamewars with Atmel, MPS4. PICs for many years, thats a statement of personal preference, I am not saying that PICs are better than anything else I am just saying I like them better please dont waste your time trying to convince me otherwise, I have evaluated most other platforms numerous times already so before you suggest I should look at your XYZ platform of choice, please save your time the odds are good I have already done so and I am still using PICs. OK, full RANT mode enabledAs I understand it Microchip are in the silicon chip business selling micro controllers actually Microchip make some really awesome parts and I am guessing here but I suspect they probably want to sell lots and lots of those awesome parts right So why do they suppress their developer community with crippled compiler tool software unless you pay large, after all, as a silicon maker they NEEDto provide tools to make it viable for a developer community to use their parts It is ridiculous charging for the tools its not like you can buy Microchip tools and then use them for developing on other platforms so the value of these tools is entirely intrinsic to Microchips own value proposition. It might work if you have the whole market wrapped up but the micro controller market is awash with other great parts and free un crippled tools. A real positive step forward for Microchip was with the introduction of MPLAB X IDE while not perfect its infinitely superior to the now discontinued MPLAB8 and older IDEs which were, err, laughable by other comparable tools. Trimble M3 Total Station Software' title='Trimble M3 Total Station Software' />The MPLAB X IDE has a lot going for it, it runs on multiple platforms Windows, Mac and Linux and it mostly works very well. I have been a user of MPLAB X from day one and while the migration was a bit of a pain and the earlier versions had a few odd quirks, every update of the IDE has just gotten better and better I make software products in my day job so I know what it takes, and to the product managers and team that developed the MPLAB X IDE I salute you for a job well done. Now of course the IDE alone is not enough, you also need a good compiler too and for the Microchip parts there are now basically three compilers, XC8, XC1. XC3. 2. These compilers as I understand it are based on the HI TECH PRO compilers that Microchip acquired when they bought HI TECH in 2. Since that acquisition they have been slowly consolidating the compilers and obsoleting the old MPLAB C compilers. Microchip getting these tools is a very good thing because they needed something better than they had but they had to buy the Australian company HI TECH Software to get them, it would appear they could not develop these themselves so acquiring them would be the logical thing to do. Trimble M3 Total Station Software' title='Trimble M3 Total Station Software' />I can only speculate that the purchase of HI TECH was most likely justified both internally andor to investors, on the promise of generating incremental revenues from the tools, otherwise why bother buying them right X years we can sell Y number of compilers for Z dollars and show a return on investment. Can you imagine an investor saying yes to Lets by HI TECH for 2. M I just made that number up so we can refocus their efforts on Microchip parts only and then give these really great compilers and libraries away, any sensible investor or finance person would probably ask the question why would we do that or where is the return that justifies the investment. But, was expanding revenue the ealreason for Microchip buying HI TECH or was there an undercurrent of need to have the quality the HI TECH compilers offered over the Microchip Compilers, it was pretty clear that Microchip themselves were way behind but that storyline would not go down too well with investors, imagine suggesting we need to buy HI TECH because they are way ahead of us and we cannot compete, and anyone looking at that from a financial point of view would probably not understand why having the tools was important without some financial rationale that shows on paper that an investment would yield a return. Maybe Microchip bought HI TECH as a strategic move to provide better tools for their parts but I am making the assumption there must have been some ROI commitment internally why Microchip do have a very clear commercial strategy around their tools, they provide free compilers but they are crippled generating unoptimised code, in some cases the code generated has junk inserted, the optimised version simply removes this junkGLONASS is a global satellite navigation system, providing real time position and velocity determination for military and civilian users. The satellites are located. Dr Ruth Keogh of Fyfe was engaged, as a Site Contamination Auditor accredited under Division 4 of Part 10 of the Environment Protection Act 1993 EP Act, to audit a. Kilauea Mount Etna Mount Yasur Mount Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira Piton de la Fournaise Erta Ale. I have also read somewhere that you can hack the setting to use different command line options to re optimise the produced code even on the free version because at the end of the day its just GCC behind the scenes. However, doing this may well revoke your licences right to use their libraries. So then, are Microchip in the tools business Absolutely not. In a letter from Microchip to its customers after the acquisition of HI TECH link they stated that we will focus our energies exclusively on Microchip related products which meant dropping future development for tools for other non Microchip parts that HI TECH used to also focus on. Kenan And Kel Full Series Of Captain more. As an independent provider HI TECH could easily justify selling their tools for money, their value proposition was they provided compilers that were much better than the below par compilers put out by Microchip, and being independent there is an implicit justification for them charging for the tools and as a result the Microchip customers had an choice they could buy the crappy compiler from Microchip or the could buy a far superior one from HI TECH it all makes perfect sense. You see, you could argue that HI TECH only had market share in the first place because the Microchip tools were poor enough that there was a need for someone to fill a gap. Think about it, if Microchip had made the best tools from day one, then they would have had the market share and companies like HI TECH would not have had a market opportunity and as a result Microchip would not have been in the position where they felt compelled to buy HI TECH in the first place to regain ground and possibly some credibility in the market. I would guess that Microchips early strategy included let the partnersthird parties make the tools, we will focus on silicon which was probably OK at the time but the world moved on and suddenly compilers and tools became strategically important element to Microchips go to market execution. OK, Microchip now own the HI TECH compilers, so why should they not charge for them HI TECH did and customers after all were prepared to pay for them so why should Microchip now not charge for them Well I think there is a very good reason Microchip NEED to make tools to enable the EE community to use their parts in designs to ensure they get used in products that go to market.