COMPILERS: $1,000 + $300 a year.
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Who has a stable compiler product that does not ask for yearly maintenance fees and licence fees? No printer port attached doggles either.

Its just a compiler. A little more complex than Tic-Tac-Toe written in BASIC. We write compilers in computer science school - its just applied automata theory.

FREE COMPILERS NOW COST $$$
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8051 Compilers have been around for a long time. They were distributed for about $100 in the 1980's and often downloaded for free. So what is the value-added feature worth the current prices? Emulator support? IDE?

Its not an intellectual property thing. Its all been done ten years ago.

DO I NEED EMULATOR SUPPORT?
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No. First the electronics in surface mount technology (SMT) are poorly ported by emulators and access to the microprocessor is often impossible in our tightly packed designs. Second, the release of FLASH ISP 8051s allows us to quickly load our program and test modules for fullspeed, in-system testing. Its a change of technique but a productivity boost in my lab.

CAN I PRETEND TO NEED THEIR PRODUCT?
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The only way I can envision needing these companies' expensive compilers is if I pretend I know nothing about the business. Maybe they should sell them at bars? :-)

MY POLICY ON COMPILER PURCHASES:
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I have a simple policy on Assemblers and Compilers. If vendors attempt to complicate the purchase with various marketing ploys... I laugh at them and I make note never use them in my company.

AN IDEAL VENDOR:
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Personally I'd like to see Borland get into this niche. They may not be good businessmen but they are great programmers and they share my no-nonsense view of compiler/assemblers.

WHAT I USE:
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And for those that haven't heard me rant on this subject before, I use free assemblers programmed in the 80's and I use my Borland IDE. I think C in embedded systems leads people into more problems and reduces the ranks of programmers that can adequately handle assembly language.

-Jay C. Box