RRK wrote:
"The basic problem is the 8051 is not designed for C."

Lets not be misleading to someone beginning the 8051 with C. Micro-processors/controllers are not designed for C. They are designed with a machine level instruction code that is represented by assembly language mnemonics for programming. C is a higher level language made to represent programming steps for different platforms. It is the job of the compiler writer to transform the C code into efficient assembly code for the specified target.
Today the drawback that most people see with the 8051 is that it is an 8 bit machine (that requires the use of the accumulator) which is a disadvantage if you compare it to a 32 bit machine and all you want is number crunching.
I use the Keil compiler when I write in C and find it very efficient except in case statements. The IDE is nice (and simple) and the simulator has saved countless hours on getting rid of the early stupid bugs in my programs.
Anyway, the TI DSP (TMS320C54) I use is very efficient with the TI C compiler but not because the DSP was designed for C but the C compiler was designed for the DSP.

Later,
Allen