On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:23 AM, Paul Curtis wrote:

> TI let the MSP430 compiler market blossom, and actively encouraged
> independent 3P compilers. However, without telling the vendors they were
> whispering sweet nothings to, they were secretly developing their own
> toolset and deployed it:
>
> http://www.embeddedstar.com/press/content/2004/12/embedded17452.html

My understanding here is that this is merely an announcement of an
Eclipse-based IDE wrapped around existing command-line
compiler/assembler/linker tools. I recall stumbling across some
*very* old manuals for these tools at one point, but I cannot recall
the exact dates on these documents. Does anyone happen to know the
early history of these tools (if, in fact, there is one) prior to this
2004 announcement?

In my opinion, TI has *still* not released a usable IDE nearly 10
years later. And while I cannot comment on the state of their paid
support, everything I have seen on their E2E site is just abysmal.
Honestly, I am not sure if TI is even a viable competitor in this
market.

I should also note that while I am rather new to embedded development,
I have been programming in C since 1987. I learned C using the GNU
toolchain, and that has been my toolchain of choice when it is an
option. In that respect I was rather lucky to have come upon the
msp430 shortly after Peter Bigot resumed development. I have been
exceptionally pleased with msp430-gcc and mspdebug. Support from
Peter and Daniel has been as good (if not better) than anything I have
seen commercially.

Finally, I am not sure how any of this is any different than MicroChip
which also offers its own compilers and support. Or have you decided
not to compete with MicroChip as well?

-p. Start a New Thread

> > TI let the MSP430 compiler market blossom, and actively encouraged
> > independent 3P compilers.
>
> That is not quite how I remember things. I am not a compiler developer,
> so obviously I don't have the "insider" views like you - but we were early
> users of the msp430, and I have followed mailing lists had contact with
> compiler developers over the years. And of course I may be misremembering
> things, or have misunderstood things at the time - so apologies if anyone
> feels I am being unfair to them.
>
> When the msp430 came out, TI's attitude was that there was an msp430
> compiler - IAR made it.

This may well have been before the flash variants of the MSP430.

> They had no interest in any other vendors or
> toolchain developers, whether they were high priced (like IAR), low priced
> (like ImageCraft), or free (mspgcc). TI seemed totally incapable of
> understanding why msp430 customers might want an alternative to IAR tools.

TI had a small set of customers at that point.

> I know that the msp430 gcc developers had enormous trouble trying to get
> anyone at TI even to acknowledge their existence, never mind give them any
> help or information - and I believe that also applied to other commercial
> toolchain developers. It took a good while before TI came round to the
> idea that a choice of development tools was a good idea.

That isn't how it was. RAL were regularly visiting Freising, meeting with
TI, and were even invited for a few days at TI's expense to come and see if
the proposed MSP430X instruction set would cause great problems in the
existing tools. This was when TI in Germany was driving the MSP430 forward.
So, we had a great relationship with TI and TI gave us anything we needed
thanks to some very, very committed individuals within the organization
(isn't it always the way?) Chris Speck should have an award for his
dedication.

The ATCs were fantastic, from the first few that were attended by perhaps
40-50 individuals and organized by committed MSP430ites in TI, to the final
hurrah in the larger hotels. Walking back to the hotel after a great night
with the MSP430 folk, after beer and music provided by TI employees, with
torches aflame and blowing in the dark night was fantastic.

However, when things were driven more state-side, things deteriorated. :-(

> I am sure you already know this, but you've got another challenge
> coming...
>
> TI have engaged Red Hat to produce a gcc toolchain for the msp430.

I don't care one bit about what TI do with MSP430 and GCC. Donning the Open
Source garb now to get down with the new-age hippies doesn't really do much
for me. ;-)

> There has been a working gcc toolchain and library for the msp430 for many
> years, and it has always produced excellent code (and being gcc, it has
> lots of useful features - I much prefer it to Code Composter). But it is
> a bit rough around the edges, lacks debugger support for the 20-bit
> devices (though the compiler supports them fine now), and for many reasons
> was never part of the mainline gcc tree - and that means it takes longer
> time and more work to get the benefits of later gcc versions. Now Red Hat
> is in the process of completing these missing parts, and presumably also
> packaging it with an IDE (perhaps CCE).

You know, I really don't give two hoots about TI + GCC + MSP430. It is what
it is.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
SolderCore Development Platform http://www.soldercore.com Start a New Thread

> Finally, I am not sure how any of this is any different than MicroChip
> which also offers its own compilers and support. Or have you decided not
> to compete with MicroChip as well?

I'm not writing anything for those twisted architectures.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
SolderCore Development Platform http://www.soldercore.com

Start a New Thread

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Paul Curtis wrote:

> TI are not offering GCC in CCS

There is no need for this as one can easily install a generic Eclipse
and roll in GCC.

> and, I suspect if they did, then the MSP430 3P ecosystem would be a different place. However, they have ideas in the MSP430+GCC arena.

You are aware that TI has decided to support RedHat to merge Peter
Bigot's updates in the msp430-gcc fork back into the mainstream gcc
codebase, right?

-p. Start a New Thread

Hi,

> On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Paul Curtis wrote:
>
> > TI are not offering GCC in CCS
>
> There is no need for this as one can easily install a generic Eclipse and
> roll in GCC.
>
> > and, I suspect if they did, then the MSP430 3P ecosystem would be a
> different place. However, they have ideas in the MSP430+GCC arena.
>
> You are aware that TI has decided to support RedHat to merge Peter Bigot's
> updates in the msp430-gcc fork back into the mainstream gcc codebase,
> right?

What TI does, or does not do, with GCC is of no concern to me at this point.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
SolderCore Development Platform http://www.soldercore.com Start a New Thread

--- In m..., "Paul Curtis" wrote:
>
> > Finally, I am not sure how any of this is any different than MicroChip
> > which also offers its own compilers and support. Or have you decided not
> > to compete with MicroChip as well?
>
> I'm not writing anything for those twisted architectures.

What's wrong with the PIC24/dsPIC and PIC32?

Leon

Start a New Thread

> > > Finally, I am not sure how any of this is any different than
> > > MicroChip which also offers its own compilers and support. Or have
> > > you decided not to compete with MicroChip as well?
> >
> > I'm not writing anything for those twisted architectures.
>
> What's wrong with the PIC24/dsPIC

...or even PIC33? Not too bad, but proprietary. Lots of different
architectures, a bit like Freescale and the HC11, HC12, HC08, HCS12, and so
on. Freescale chucked all future development of those in the bin and are
now going ARM.

> and PIC32?

What other MIPS4k microcontrollers are generally available that would make a
generic MIPS product a viable market? It's a dead end for tool sales, much
like AVR32. Who, other than IAR, produce AVR32 compilers? That tells you
everything you need to know.

Microchip asked us if we would port CrossWorks to the PIC32 before the PIC32
surfaced, and we declined to. Who other than Microchip is a major PIC32
independent compiler vendor? Greenhills?

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
SolderCore Development Platform http://www.soldercore.com Start a New Thread

> > What's wrong with the PIC24/dsPIC
>
> ...or even PIC33? Not too bad, but proprietary. Lots of different
> architectures, a bit like Freescale and the HC11, HC12, HC08, HCS12, and so
> on. Freescale chucked all future development of those in the bin and are
> now going ARM.
>
> > and PIC32?
>
> What other MIPS4k microcontrollers are generally available that would make a
> generic MIPS product a viable market? It's a dead end for tool sales, much
> like AVR32. Who, other than IAR, produce AVR32 compilers? That tells you
> everything you need to know.
>
> Microchip asked us if we would port CrossWorks to the PIC32 before the PIC32
> surfaced, and we declined to. Who other than Microchip is a major PIC32
> independent compiler vendor? Greenhills?

I find the PIC32/MIPS easier to use than the ARM, both from a hardware and software viewpoint, and it had some advantages over the ARM7. These disappeared when the Cortex came out, however. The new MIPS core might change things, when Microchip gets round to producing chips using it. It is something of a dead-end, but Microchip probably makes money out of it, which is the main thing.

Leon Start a New Thread

On Thu, 7 Feb 2013 17:08:37 -0000, Paul wrote:
>> > > Finally, I am not sure how any of this is any different than
>> > > MicroChip which also offers its own compilers and support. Or have
>> > > you decided not to compete with MicroChip as well?
>> >
>> > I'm not writing anything for those twisted architectures.
>>
>> What's wrong with the PIC24/dsPIC
>
>...or even PIC33? Not too bad, but proprietary. Lots of different
>architectures, a bit like Freescale and the HC11, HC12, HC08, HCS12, and so
>on. Freescale chucked all future development of those in the bin and are
>now going ARM.
>
>> and PIC32?
>
>What other MIPS4k microcontrollers are generally available that would make a
>generic MIPS product a viable market? It's a dead end for tool sales, much
>like AVR32. Who, other than IAR, produce AVR32 compilers? That tells you
>everything you need to know.
>
>Microchip asked us if we would port CrossWorks to the PIC32 before the PIC32
>surfaced, and we declined to. Who other than Microchip is a major PIC32
>independent compiler vendor? Greenhills?

I've a lot of mixed feelings from this discussion and I can't
place them into any kind of final form. Obviously, I'm an end
user of compilers, not a vendor. So interests are different,
too.

The only comment I have is to the above where you pan down
parts because of their proprietary nature. Yet the MSP430
itself is proprietary and no one else makes chips based on
that core (that I know of.)

The MIPS m4k, at least, is an IP that other vendors _might_
select and build, in addition to Microchip. MIPS is in the
business of selling that kind of IP, I think. (If not, let me
know.)

ARM has achieved something with its critical mass starting
(memory serving) with the ARM7 that no other IP-only company
has achieved. If to be interesting to you, a company has to
sport an ARM core, then I suppose that is that. But m4k is a
very interesting core and Microchip has good customer support
(if not compiler vendor support.)

So I guess your response here confuses me a little (I'm NOT
confused about your discussion of TI here, though; just in
general when you say that a core is proprietary which doesn't
seem to me to be a problem if you want to be in business
anywhere else than ARM.)

Thanks, Paul.

Jon Start a New Thread

Jon,

> I've a lot of mixed feelings from this discussion and I can't place them
> into any kind of final form. Obviously, I'm an end user of compilers, not
> a vendor. So interests are different, too.
>
> The only comment I have is to the above where you pan down parts because
> of their proprietary nature. Yet the MSP430 itself is proprietary and no
> one else makes chips based on that core (that I know of.)

It is true nobody else makes it, but competitors to it will arrive with ARM
at the core. And if I had my time again, I would not do MSP430, I would not
do AVR, I would not do MAXQ20, and I would not do MAXQ30. We learn from our
mistakes.

> The MIPS m4k, at least, is an IP that other vendors _might_ select and
> build, in addition to Microchip. MIPS is in the business of selling that
> kind of IP, I think. (If not, let me know.)

ARM and Imagination picked over MIPS's bones:

<http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/x86-processor-endgame/2012/11/imagin
ation-arm-buy-mips.html>

ARM and Imagination were buddies, possibly less so now.

> ARM has achieved something with its critical mass starting (memory
> serving) with the ARM7 that no other IP-only company has achieved. If to
> be interesting to you, a company has to sport an ARM core, then I suppose
> that is that. But m4k is a very interesting core and Microchip has good
> customer support (if not compiler vendor support.)

Whatever MIPS licenses, it's not been successful in licensing to the general
purpose microcontroller crowd. It might do great in set-top boxes and so
on, and had a fist at trying to make phones by having official Android
support (IIRC), but really, where is it in the mainstream media?

> So I guess your response here confuses me a little (I'm NOT confused about
> your discussion of TI here, though; just in general when you say that a
> core is proprietary which doesn't seem to me to be a problem if you want
> to be in business anywhere else than ARM.)

Like I said, if I had my time again I would not do MSP430 as a
single-sourced architecture -- you're just too exposed to the silicon vendor
deciding to throw you under a bus.

The world is moving to having free dev tools, huggy-huggy socialized
community support +1 tweeeet, and less-than-cost-price evaluation kits.

In the past you've wanted me to put non-standard features into the compiler
and improve its code generation. I know that will win me nothing in the
end: nobody wants that any longer. They want something "cheap" and
"adequate" not "professional" and "robust" with zero-cost libraries. Most
Si vendors libraries are really not that brilliant, but they are "adequate"
for a chuck-it-together-and-pray product.

Customers can endure unending pain when the price point is $0.

--
Paul Curtis, Rowley Associates Ltd http://www.rowley.co.uk
SolderCore Development Platform http://www.soldercore.com Start a New Thread