ARM IDE & kit similar to CCS for PIC's?

In article <13c62n1lkr8124a@corp.supernews.com>, Paul Curtis 
<plc@rowley.co.uk> writes
>"Chris Hills" <chris@phaedsys.org> wrote in message
>news:<mnjjV9AW5AwGFA1A@phaedsys.demon.co.uk>...
>> In article <1186961538.421108.206970@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
>> larwe <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> writes
>> >On Aug 12, 6:17 pm, The_Todd <toddb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> My question is: Is there anything similar to the CCS IDE for the ARM
>> >> controllers? A reasonably priced ($300) well supported and documented
>> >> thats easy to use IDE that supports JTAG etc...? I'm not interested in

>> >Hard to understand why you are not "interested" in gcc when a large
>> >percentage of the world's fielded ARM code was built with it - but
>> >anyway, look at Rowley's CrossWorks for ARM. A personal license is
>> >$149, an education license $299. I am using it with Rowley's own USB
>> >JTAG adapter and it works well, I assume it works just as well with
>> >other supported adapters.
>
>> Rowley's compiler IS the GCC compiler. You are paying for their IDE
 >
 >
>As I keep pointint out, only for ARM,

I thought we were discussing your ARM suite.

>not for MSP430, AVR, MAXQ.

Enough with the commercials already ... :-)

> With a
>$149 personal license for ARM you get a non-commercial version of the

What is a non-commercial version?

>software *and* a piece of hardware, the CrossConnect Lite, thrown in so you
>can do standard debugging.  And you're not just "paying for their IDE", you
>are paying for the IDE, the library,

You do your own library?

> and all the CPU and board support
>packages we have written

Most compilers come with a multitude of BSP's and projects even on the 
free versions of the other commercial compilers.

> and access to our support helpdesk.  If you only
>got the IDE, I'd be disappointed.

Point taken but I thought support for GCC was free from the community? 
Or do people need support from you because you use a different library 
etc?

Regards
    Chris


-- 
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:23:59 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org>
wrote:

><snip>
>Point taken but I thought support for GCC was free from the community? 

There are a number of companies that sell configured packages of
software that include GCC and GAS at their core.  For example:

http://www.microcross.com/html/about_us.html

"Microcross is the leading international distributor of open-source
embedded development tools based on GNU technology."

Frankly, I've purchased the tools from Microcross to save time.  At
the time, my price was about $150 for the set.  (That was four years
back, I think.)  I don't believe any of the configured tools I got
were their own product and they were not limited to non-commercial use
-- so long as I selected the right library to include.  That project
never did see the light of day, as we were evaluating a processor and
tools at the time and the project didn't get fully funded in the end.
So I can't speak from the point of view of a completed project.

>Or do people need support from you because you use a different library 
>etc?

I think one possible value of a 'different library' from a vendor like
this is that you don't have to worry about the licensing.  You have
paid __them__ to vet this issue for you.  Otherwise, you can be sure
they would be quickly confronted about the license violation in their
package.  In using GPL'd tools, one has to be careful and it's nice
that someone else is thinking about these issues, too, who is a bit
more of an expert about it than most of us application programmers
often are.  Another is that when competing with other companies, the
library can have a material impact on the performance of the compiler
output, on the whole, and competing will generally mean some effort
will go into providing a more effective library than what is freely
available without restriction to GCC.  None of this is a guarantee, of
course.  But it is not an unreasonable expectation.

Jon

P.S.
I have recently been using Rowley's toolset for the ARM (LPC2148, in
my case) and he was very generous with me in the process of getting
started, so realize that I am speaking from an existing, friendly
relationship:

Rowley offers a strong, value-added package for the ARM, Paul is very
technically informed on myriad details as well as the marketplace, and
Rowley is one of the better service-oriented businesses I've worked
with.  His offer of tools for $149 for non-commercial use, including
the JTAG unit he provides, is fine.  It's about what you'd expect to
pay for a with-demo-board-only special version of JLINK (or ULINK-2)
or other modest JTAG device.  His JTAG tool includes a feature you may
not get with those and may need -- following variable clock rates
under JTAG debugging, I think (but my knowledge is not comprehensive
here, so take this with a grain of salt.)  And you get non-commercial,
unlimited use of a pretty easy to use toolset.

Looking backwards, if I were doing hobby work with ARM processors, I
wouldn't bat an eye about accepting that deal knowing what I now know.
The struggle in learning about and the cost in getting a good JTAG
unit along with all the rest would be short-circuited and at a price
that is probably no different than I'd otherwise spend, anyway.  Paul
is offering more than just good value, in my opinion, to hobbyists.

Jon

In article <13c635o23l2l04c@corp.supernews.com>, Paul Curtis says...
> 
> "Robert Adsett" <sub2@aeolusdevelopment.com> wrote in message 
> news:MPG.21297ae966da7ae398979f@free.teranews.com...
> > In article <1186966571.106883.155100@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>,
> > larwe says...
> >> On Aug 12, 7:37 pm, Robert Adsett <s...@aeolusdevelopment.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> > Of course CrossWorks for ARM is GCC plus their IDE and debugger.  There
> >>
> >> It used to be, but ISTR last time I spoke with Paul @ Rowley that this
> >> was no longer true - it's now using their own compiler engine.
> >
> > Their website says GCC.  They do supply libraries of course, including a
> > C runtime library.
> >
> > It looks as if ImageCraft's is cheaper, $200-$550 as compared to
> > Rowely's $1000 for development versions.
> >
> > Robert
> 
> $995 is the CrossWorks commercial version.  $149 is the CrossWorks hobbyist 
> version with hardware thrown in.
> 
> Comparing like with like with the top-end commercial tools, you will also 
> need a debugger with the ImageCraft product, another $159.  Ok, and if you 
> want the ImageCraft compiler, a debugger, and the a USB JTAG adapter that's 
> an additional $429 which brings the total to$978.  This is a fair 
> comparison.
> 
> Comparing a hobbyist purchase, you can get a CrossConnect USB JTAG adapter 
> and CrossWorks software from us for $149, but ImageCraft is, oh, $199 + $429 
> which is $628 for the same thing.
> 
> So, in the round, I fail to see why ImageCraft works out cheaper, comparing 
> like for like.

I was comparing based on the licensed for producing code for use in a 
product.  The other items certainly add value, but it's not necessarily 
what everyone is looking for.  Whether they should be is another 
question.

Robert

-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote in message news:lui6c35vkht9r8uoo5e50iv4qafc7j60g2@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:23:59 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org>
> wrote:

>>Or do people need support from you because you use a different library
>>etc?
>
> I think one possible value of a 'different library' from a vendor like
> this is that you don't have to worry about the licensing.  You have
> paid __them__ to vet this issue for you.  Otherwise, you can be sure
> they would be quickly confronted about the license violation in their
> package.  In using GPL'd tools, one has to be careful and it's nice
> that someone else is thinking about these issues, too, who is a bit
> more of an expert about it than most of us application programmers
> often are.  Another is that when competing with other companies, the
> library can have a material impact on the performance of the compiler
> output, on the whole, and competing will generally mean some effort
> will go into providing a more effective library than what is freely
> available without restriction to GCC.  None of this is a guarantee, of
> course.  But it is not an unreasonable expectation.

The licensing is definitely an issue. Even newlib has some restrictions despite
not being (L)GPL. However the killer problem is that the freely available libraries
are huge and slow(*) and so totally unsuitable for embedded systems. As you say,
you can get a lot more out of a compiler by using high quality libraries. AFAIK
most companies selling GCC based tools use their own (closed source) libraries.

Wilco

(*) As an example, long long divide in GCC's libraries takes in total 5KBytes on ARM.
My fast version (ie. performance, not codesize optimised) takes 528 bytes...

"Wilco Dijkstra" <Wilco_dot_Dijkstra@ntlworld.com> wrote in message 
news:zSLwi.7447$ka7.1466@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
>
> "Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote in message 
> news:lui6c35vkht9r8uoo5e50iv4qafc7j60g2@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:23:59 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org>
>> wrote:
>
>>>Or do people need support from you because you use a different library
>>>etc?
>>
>> I think one possible value of a 'different library' from a vendor like
>> this is that you don't have to worry about the licensing.  You have
>> paid __them__ to vet this issue for you.  Otherwise, you can be sure
>> they would be quickly confronted about the license violation in their
>> package.  In using GPL'd tools, one has to be careful and it's nice
>> that someone else is thinking about these issues, too, who is a bit
>> more of an expert about it than most of us application programmers
>> often are.  Another is that when competing with other companies, the
>> library can have a material impact on the performance of the compiler
>> output, on the whole, and competing will generally mean some effort
>> will go into providing a more effective library than what is freely
>> available without restriction to GCC.  None of this is a guarantee, of
>> course.  But it is not an unreasonable expectation.
>
> The licensing is definitely an issue. Even newlib has some restrictions 
> despite
> not being (L)GPL. However the killer problem is that the freely available 
> libraries
> are huge and slow(*) and so totally unsuitable for embedded systems. As 
> you say,
> you can get a lot more out of a compiler by using high quality libraries. 
> AFAIK
> most companies selling GCC based tools use their own (closed source) 
> libraries.

Licensing is certianly an issue.  Although we use GCC as the compiler and 
binutils as the underpinnings of linking, the libraries, board support 
packages, flash code, and everything else is certainly not covered by any 
style of GPL/LGPL license because we wrote the rest in-house with properly 
licensed software (Visual Studio and Qt).

With a Personal (non-commercial) license you can use our tools to write 
non-commercial software.  We make no claims on the source code you write and 
you are free to distribute the sources to others if you wish.  We provide 
the source code for GCC and binutils and the patches we've made so you can 
rebuild the tools should you need to.

We have already been through the issues involved with the FSF; I don't think 
we're any different from other companies in some regards.  I can't speak for 
Microcross, I do not know whether they provide their own closed source 
libraries or not.

The issue for commercial customers is that they can purchase (from us) a 
standard Commercial licence for our tools and know that their end 
application is not covered by any GPL or LGPL license.  If we had used LGPL 
code in the library we distribute to customers then they would be bound to 
provide relinkable object code.  This is obviously undesirable for many 
customers and, gee, they may not even be aware of the mess they could land 
themselves in.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd   http://www.rowley.co.uk

CrossWorks for ARM, MSP430, AVR, MAXQ, and now Cortex-M3 processors

"Chris Hills" <chris@phaedsys.org> wrote in message 
news:rHxg9lJfiywGFA2K@phaedsys.demon.co.uk...
> In article <13c62n1lkr8124a@corp.supernews.com>, Paul Curtis 
> <plc@rowley.co.uk> writes
>>"Chris Hills" <chris@phaedsys.org> wrote in message
>>news:<mnjjV9AW5AwGFA1A@phaedsys.demon.co.uk>...
>>> In article <1186961538.421108.206970@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
>>> larwe <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> writes
>>> >On Aug 12, 6:17 pm, The_Todd <toddb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> My question is: Is there anything similar to the CCS IDE for the ARM
>>> >> controllers? A reasonably priced ($300) well supported and documented
>>> >> thats easy to use IDE that supports JTAG etc...? I'm not interested 
>>> >> in
>
>>> >Hard to understand why you are not "interested" in gcc when a large
>>> >percentage of the world's fielded ARM code was built with it - but
>>> >anyway, look at Rowley's CrossWorks for ARM. A personal license is
>>> >$149, an education license $299. I am using it with Rowley's own USB
>>> >JTAG adapter and it works well, I assume it works just as well with
>>> >other supported adapters.
>>
>>> Rowley's compiler IS the GCC compiler. You are paying for their IDE
> >
> >
>>As I keep pointint out, only for ARM,
>
> I thought we were discussing your ARM suite.

You made a statement that the Rowley Compiler is GCC.  In fact, it's 
not--the "Rowley Compiler" is something that I wrote and which generates 
code for a number of targets, not only the ones that we've turned into 
products.  I made the decision that I did not wish to write an ARM code 
generator because I had already done so for Rowley Modula-2 and didn't feel 
the need to do it again.  There was also another very good reason to 
integrate GCC rather than our own toolset into CrossWorks, and that reason 
has never seen the light of day outside of Rowley Associates and  a single 
silicon company.

A more accurate statement is that "The compiler provided with CrossWorks for 
ARM is derived from the GNU Compiler Collection".

>> With a
>>$149 personal license for ARM you get a non-commercial version of the
>
> What is a non-commercial version?

I won't recite the agreement, but simply put, it states that you will not 
derive a profit from the use of our tools.  This covers hobbyist, 
educational, and research use of our tools.  Now, in the case of CrossWorks 
for ARM, we are not restricting the use of GCC and binutils, far from 
it--you can use those freely.  However, if you wanted to do that, you would 
not need to purchase a Personal License--you just download and use GCC and 
binutls from us or elsewhere.  What you can't do is use our IDE and you 
can't use our libraries without purchasing CrossWorks because those are 
covered by our own license.

>>software *and* a piece of hardware, the CrossConnect Lite, thrown in so 
>>you
>>can do standard debugging.  And you're not just "paying for their IDE", 
>>you
>>are paying for the IDE, the library,
>
> You do your own library?

Of course.  This is clearly stated as one of the benefits of using our 
tools.  In this way commercial customers can be sure that their application 
will not be covered by a GPL or LGPL license inherited from the inclusion of 
GPL/LGPL code in the library they link in.

>> and all the CPU and board support
>>packages we have written
>
> Most compilers come with a multitude of BSP's and projects even on the 
> free versions of the other commercial compilers.

...but I'm pretty much sure they don't offer the range of BSPs that we 
provide.  I regularly survey the development tools landscape.  The fact that 
anybody can write and distribute a BSP for CrossWorks, which you can just 
plug in, pretty much nails us as fairly unique.  We have customers that are 
developing proprietary ARM chips using CrossWorks and writing their own 
BSPs.

>> and access to our support helpdesk.  If you only
>>got the IDE, I'd be disappointed.
>
> Point taken but I thought support for GCC was free from the community?

Whoever said that we only provide GCC support?  Free support is worth every 
penny, but there is an expectation from a customer that has paid for our 
tools to receive support from the provider, not seek support from the 
community.  We do not take customer's money and tell them to seek help 
elsewhere--there is an undertaking that we will support them.

To be frank, GCC support is the least of our problems.  I would say that 95% 
of customer problems are related to operation of hardware, NOT software, 
from the processor right through the JTAG adapter to the OS it runs on. 
This is the reason that we are now distributing a low-cost JTAG adapter with 
each CrossWorks license purchase is because that adapter runs our own code 
and we then have zero excuse for any failings.  In fact, the BIGGEST, 
hairyest problem is the way in which ARMs reset and control of them is 
gained after reset.

> Or do people need support from you because you use a different library 
> etc?

Most customers are new to ARM and want something easy to use.  We provide 
that.  Experience ranges from complete newbies to hardened engineers. 
Everybody has their own set of support requirements.

--

Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd   http://www.rowley.co.uk

CrossWorks for ARM, MSP430, AVR, MAXQ, and now Cortex-M3 processors

"Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote in message 
news:lui6c35vkht9r8uoo5e50iv4qafc7j60g2@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:23:59 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org>
> wrote:

< snip>

> Looking backwards, if I were doing hobby work with ARM processors, I
> wouldn't bat an eye about accepting that deal knowing what I now know.
> The struggle in learning about and the cost in getting a good JTAG
> unit along with all the rest would be short-circuited and at a price
> that is probably no different than I'd otherwise spend, anyway.  Paul
> is offering more than just good value, in my opinion, to hobbyists.

The reason to introduce a Personal License for CrossWorks is that my inbox 
became littered with requests to lower the price of the tools for people who 
are not interested in producing products but want to play about with 
microprocessors.  Discussions over the Personal License took a long time at 
CrossWorks Central; in fact, all marketing and pricing takes a long time, 
this is much harder than writing software.  Throwing in a JTAG adapter 
sweetens the deal.

The argument for a Personal License is clear: hobbyists want to play with 
micros and use a decent hassle-free piece of software when doing so.  We had 
to balance this against the fact that some customers will purchase a 
personal license even though they are developing commercial code.  The 
pragmatic way to view this is that, in all likelihood, we wouldn't sell a 
commercial license to these customers anyway, and if we witheld the 
introduction of a Personal License because of that we'd be spiting the 
hobbyists that genuinely want to use it.

Hence, we took the Eagle model of personal use--sign a piece of paper and 
we'll let you purchase a Personal License.  That makes people think before 
proceeding and, should we wish to press things later because of license 
misuse, we have a signed agreement.

We take the same view of developers using cracked versions of our 
software--we're not going to sell to these "customers" anyway, so why get 
all bent out of shape when they do use it?  Why not consider it confirmation 
of our product's quality that technoheads take the time to crack and use our 
products?  Our focus remains on the class of customer we wish to establish 
and retain: those that delight in paying for great software and appreciate 
fantastic support.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd   http://www.rowley.co.uk

CrossWorks for ARM, MSP430, AVR, MAXQ, and now Cortex-M3 processors

On Aug 16, 3:30 am, "Paul Curtis" <p...@rowley.co.uk> wrote:
> "Jonathan Kirwan" <jkir...@easystreet.com> wrote in message
>
> news:lui6c35vkht9r8uoo5e50iv4qafc7j60g2@4ax.com...
>
> > On Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:23:59 +0100, Chris Hills <ch...@phaedsys.org>
> > wrote:
>
> < snip>
>
> > Looking backwards, if I were doing hobby work with ARM processors, I
> > wouldn't bat an eye about accepting that deal knowing what I now know.
> > The struggle in learning about and the cost in getting a good JTAG
> > unit along with all the rest would be short-circuited and at a price
> > that is probably no different than I'd otherwise spend, anyway.  Paul
> > is offering more than just good value, in my opinion, to hobbyists.
>
> The reason to introduce a Personal License for CrossWorks is that my inbox
> became littered with requests to lower the price of the tools for people who
> are not interested in producing products but want to play about with
> microprocessors.  Discussions over the Personal License took a long time at
> CrossWorks Central; in fact, all marketing and pricing takes a long time,
> this is much harder than writing software.  Throwing in a JTAG adapter
> sweetens the deal.
>
> The argument for a Personal License is clear: hobbyists want to play with
> micros and use a decent hassle-free piece of software when doing so.  We had
> to balance this against the fact that some customers will purchase a
> personal license even though they are developing commercial code.  The
> pragmatic way to view this is that, in all likelihood, we wouldn't sell a
> commercial license to these customers anyway, and if we witheld the
> introduction of a Personal License because of that we'd be spiting the
> hobbyists that genuinely want to use it.
>
> Hence, we took the Eagle model of personal use--sign a piece of paper and
> we'll let you purchase a Personal License.  That makes people think before
> proceeding and, should we wish to press things later because of license
> misuse, we have a signed agreement.
>
> We take the same view of developers using cracked versions of our
> software--we're not going to sell to these "customers" anyway, so why get
> all bent out of shape when they do use it?  Why not consider it confirmation
> of our product's quality that technoheads take the time to crack and use our
> products?  Our focus remains on the class of customer we wish to establish
> and retain: those that delight in paying for great software and appreciate
> fantastic support.
>
> --
> Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd  http://www.rowley.co.uk
>
> CrossWorks for ARM, MSP430, AVR, MAXQ, and now Cortex-M3 processors

Hello All,

This is my first time posting in an usenet group, and I am using
google reader, so if something goes
wrong, I will appreciated your advice.. (good or bad)

Any way, let's go to the meat!

So seems that a good deal of these IDEs including Rowley and other is
the library, because it could save you
a lot of space due they are optimized to deep embedded systems, so
providers state really clear this advantage.

In the case specify to Rowley, Paul, could you mind to compare your
library vs keil's newest library microlib for ARM?

I have done some projects with the free tools and the are good but the
C runtime lib is big, really big, and
sometimes is not acceptable to have this extra space used for this big
libs. One good example is when you jump from your
vector and stack init section(asm) to __main... from here (without
rewriting the C runtime libs ) I expect to do zero down,
copy down, stack, heap(optional) and then main(), but what I have
found is that the *argv, argc* section, and others sections
 are there adding a lot of space.

ARod <alejmrm@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello All,
>
> This is my first time posting in an usenet group, and I am using
> google reader, so if something goes
> wrong, I will appreciated your advice.. (good or bad)
>
> Any way, let's go to the meat!
>
> So seems that a good deal of these IDEs including Rowley and other is
> the library, because it could save you
> a lot of space due they are optimized to deep embedded systems, so
> providers state really clear this advantage.
> In the case specify to Rowley, Paul, could you mind to compare your
> library vs keil's newest library microlib for ARM?
>
> I have done some projects with the free tools and the are good but the
> C runtime lib is big, really big, and
> sometimes is not acceptable to have this extra space used for this big
> libs. One good example is when you jump from your
> vector and stack init section(asm) to __main... from here (without
> rewriting the C runtime libs ) I expect to do zero down,
> copy down, stack, heap(optional) and then main(), but what I have
> found is that the *argv, argc* section, and others sections
>  are there adding a lot of space.

gcc works fine as a "bare metal" compiler - I just did a test with a
trivial main() and a minimum of startup code. The total size is ~190
bytes.

If you use functions such as malloc or printf, you will bloat the code
pretty quickly. This is true with all C libraries (but to a lesser
extent with the commercial ones). I have found that these functions
are all best avoided anyway on "small" systems (e.g. the single chip
ARMS).

-- 

John Devereux

On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 22:17:20 -0000, The_Todd <toddberk@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Bear with me as I'm a student mechanical engineer and micro
>controllers are my hobby.
>
>I've become quite familiar with PIC microcontrollers using the CCS
>compiler which I am quite fond of. I started out with their education
>development kit that was a fantastic resource that came with the great
>compiler, hardware, and an excellent work book with simple examples
>and explanations. Its here: http://ccsinfo.com/content.php?page=education
>
>My question is: Is there anything similar to the CCS IDE for the ARM
>controllers? A reasonably priced ($300) well supported and documented
>thats easy to use IDE that supports JTAG etc...? I'm not interested in
>the GNU GCC.

Both Hitex and Raisonance makes commercial IDEs that can integrate
with GNU GCC. You do not need to write makefiles etc. Both have 
demo versions you can download. The basic difference between the 
demo and full versions is that the debug support is limited with the
demo versions. Both sell development kits that has the IDE and gcc
bundled with the kit with documentation on getting examples going on
the development kits. The Hitex documentation looks better than the
Raisonance documentations.

Regards
  Anton Erasmus