Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from Renesas? I have been testing it for about two weeks (using M16 simulator) and very unhappy abaout it. It has more bugs then benefits. Crashes all over the place.Trying to write debugger scripts is horrendous, basically piece of shit. That's probably why Mitsubishi doesn't give any tech support. Overall if you are planning to use it, just run away from it. There are excellent development tools out there and don't waste your time. Zafer Elbi T-Tronics AS.
Renesas HEW
Started by ●May 9, 2006
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
Zaf wrote:> Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from > Renesas? > I have been testing it for about two weeks (using M16 simulator) and > very unhappy abaout it. > It has more bugs then benefits. Crashes all over the place.Trying to > write debugger scripts is horrendous, basically piece of shit. That's > probably why Mitsubishi doesn't give any tech support. > Overall if you are planning to use it, just run away from it. There > are excellent development tools out there and don't waste your time. > Zafer Elbi > T-Tronics AS.Yes. We've been using various versions of it for some years now in the automotive industry. I've seen better products, but I've also seen worse. We have a friendly Renesas dealer who often does the 1000km (600mile) trip down from Sydney to give support. OTOH, we do buy chips in automotive quantities. Geoff -- Geoff Field Professional Geek, Amateur Stage-Levelling Gauge
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
"Zaf" <zafer0@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1147175172.858386.250280@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...> Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from > Renesas? > I have been testing it for about two weeks (using M16 simulator) and > very unhappy abaout it. > It has more bugs then benefits. Crashes all over the place.Trying to > write debugger scripts is horrendous, basically piece of shit. That's > probably why Mitsubishi doesn't give any tech support. > Overall if you are planning to use it, just run away from it. There are > excellent development tools out there and don't waste your time.I've been using it since about '97 or so. It's been fine. Nowadays I use it as a front-end to the KPIT GNU tools: http://www.kpitgnutools.com I confess I've not used the debugging side much; I mostly verify, rather than debug. I don't remember any crashes or major bugs. Works fine for me. Steve http://www.fivetrees.com
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
On 2006-05-09, Zaf <zafer0@gmail.com> wrote:> Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from > Renesas?I used it for a few days. I found it slow, clunky, and difficult (pretty par for all MS-Windows-based point-and-click IDEs). I tossed it and went back to my normal Linux/gcc development environment. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! Yes, but will I at see the EASTER BUNNY in visi.com skintight leather at an IRON MAIDEN concert?
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
Zaf wrote:> Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from > Renesas?I used it on the software development project for one of our product lines. The version that I used was mostly the pre Renesas tool set, when it was Hitachi Europe. I didn't think that the tool set was too bad and the debugging capabilities were decent, using the E6000 emulator. However, at a price tag of over $10K USD, I think it was EXTREMELY over priced. My most recent project, by way of comparison, uses TI with Code Composer and the Spectrum Digital JTAG emulator, which seems to me to be a much more power development system for less than 1/5th of the price. Granted, the processor itself may be more powerfull in that it supports the JTAG emulator, compared to the Renesas H8S that we used, but the price of the processors is nearly identical in the quantity that we are buying (non automotive). With respect to the technical support I felt that their support was less than adequate and they were overly concerned with getting maximum amount of money for providing a limited amount of support. In summary, given a choice I would NOT use their system again.
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
On 9 May, in article
<1147193794.482039.91510@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>
no_spam_me2@hotmail.com "Noway2" wrote:
>Zaf wrote:
>> Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from
>> Renesas?
>
>I used it on the software development project for one of our product
>lines. The version that I used was mostly the pre Renesas tool set,
>when it was Hitachi Europe. I didn't think that the tool set was too
>bad and the debugging capabilities were decent, using the E6000
>emulator. However, at a price tag of over $10K USD, I think it was
>EXTREMELY over priced. My most recent project, by way of comparison,
Well now it is a free download, or comes with debuggers like E8 (USB)
which replace their older E-10 range. I am going to try it on one of the
few H8s that support the E8 (H8/Tiny), the only reason is on this project
I will see if it helps speed up development.
The E8 I got was about 100 GBP (150 'ish' USD).
The E6000 and similar and saw the price tag and went how many months
that would have to save in time was not practical, compared to base
code generated on an EVB using HDI for a lot less. After that the
interactions with hardware became complex, where by logic analyser
noteing sequences of high speed data comms to a couple of pins from
the device wa what was needed.
>uses TI with Code Composer and the Spectrum Digital JTAG emulator,
>which seems to me to be a much more power development system for less
>than 1/5th of the price. Granted, the processor itself may be more
>powerfull in that it supports the JTAG emulator, compared to the
>Renesas H8S that we used, but the price of the processors is nearly
>identical in the quantity that we are buying (non automotive). With
>respect to the technical support I felt that their support was less
>than adequate and they were overly concerned with getting maximum
>amount of money for providing a limited amount of support.
>In summary, given a choice I would NOT use their system again.
I will see what it is like for simulation and debugging, but if major
problems return to my own project and make files to control what is going
on.
--
Paul Carpenter | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/> PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/> GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
"Noway2" <no_spam_me2@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:1147193794.482039.91510@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...> Zaf wrote: >> Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from >> Renesas? > > With > respect to the technical support I felt that their support was less > than adequate and they were overly concerned with getting maximum > amount of money for providing a limited amount of support. > > In summary, given a choice I would NOT use their system again.In my case, tech support was provided by the UK distributor (Arrow), rather than by Renesas, and specifically by one tech sales rep - who was excellent. No complaints there at all. Re price: ISTR that the high price was/is for the compiler, rather than HEW (which is a GUI IDE). As I said elsewhere, I'm now using HEW with the GNU tools, and HEW itself was a free download. Steve http://www.fivetrees.com
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
"Zaf" <zafer0@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1147175172.858386.250280@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...> Has anybody used the HEW (High performance embedded workshop) from > Renesas? > I have been testing it for about two weeks (using M16 simulator) and > very unhappy abaout it. > It has more bugs then benefits. Crashes all over the place.Trying to > write debugger scripts is horrendous, basically piece of shit. That's > probably why Mitsubishi doesn't give any tech support. > Overall if you are planning to use it, just run away from it. There are > excellent development tools out there and don't waste your time. > Zafer Elbi > T-Tronics AS.I sadly must agree with you. We tried it out, when we were ready for a new high volumedesign because the chips (R8C) was really cheap at high volumes, but both the emulator and simulator was so buggy and slow and chunky to use, that we dropped it after a while. Not only was the software buggy and prone to crashing all the time, but also higly unstable. Emulator stopped running for no apparant reason, connection was lost and so on. The support from the ditributor was excellent, but they also didn't understand what went on and after quite a lot of exchanges of different emulators and demoboards we dropped the product. However, if better tools where around (they might be, I have not checked) I would stille recommend the chips. They are quite cool and very cheap. Just my $0.02. Henrik
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
"Henrik [6650]" <not@valid.com> writes:> However, if better tools where around (they might be, I have not > checked) I would still recommend the chips. They are quite cool and > very cheap.I recently finished porting gcc and binutils to the r8c/m16c/m32c families, and gdb support was recently added too (with a simulator). My notes are here: http://people.redhat.com/dj/m32c/ You'll want the cvs "head" versions of gcc (well, svn trunk), binutils, newlib, and gdb to get everything. I'm open to feedback about the quality of the produced code, too. The simulator supports the RGB leds on the r8c eval board too ;-) It also supports one of the hardware serial ports, but I forget which chip I modelled. It lets me run the same binary images on the board and the simulator, and still have a working "printf". You can easily tweak the sim sources to match your hardware. The tools can be used to produce SREC files that HEW and KD30 can download to the boards.
Reply by ●May 9, 20062006-05-09
On 2006-05-09, DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> wrote:> I recently finished porting gcc and binutils to the r8c/m16c/m32c > families, and gdb support was recently added too (with a simulator). > > My notes are here: http://people.redhat.com/dj/m32c/I looked at the M16C a couple years back, and when I was wondering about the possibility of a GCC port, I was told that that GCC doesn't know how to deal with data pointers and code pointers that are different sizes, so an M16C port would be limited to a single 16-bit address space. I see from your page that GCC supports 1M of code space on the M16C, yet has 16 bit pointers. How are pointers to functions handled? -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! I'm CONTROLLED by at the CIA!! EVERYONE is visi.com controlled by the CIA!!
