[sdiy] MPLAB-X alternative

[sleepy_dog at gmx.de]

grant musictechnologiesgroup.com:
> From: "Roman Sowa" <modular at go2.pl>
>
>   > I will not elaborate why MPLAB-X is a pile of unusable crap, let's say
>   > I'd rather give up PICs in total than use it.
>
> This was exactly the motivation for my recent use of STM8. If it makes

Why bother with STM8, though? "I came from 8 bit, so this oughto be right" ?
STM8, from a first glace at mouser, does not look exactly cheaper than
STM32.

If using ST-provided tools, while their CubeIDE is also a
cross-platform, Eclipse based behemoth,
it, and their libraries, have become usable if you know what to avoid /
disable, etc, though.

The STM8 IDE you describe sounds a lot worse than my working experience
with the Cube thing, anyway.
Debugging over SWD, I can't complain either.
Never used STM8 or SWIM, so I can't compare, but compared to anything
PIC I tried, which has a useless mockery of "debugging" (no call stack,
ONE whole HW breakpoint, or program memory-grinding software breakpoints),
STM32 debugging is quite helpful.
The CubeIDE shows all the peripheral register contents, register bits
decoded by names matching the manual's etc.,
next to several call stack frames you can march through, with variable
contents etc.
(the debug HW module inside a STM32 doing something can sometimes slow
the thing down and be a party pooper, most notably when you have an
enabled HW watchdog ^^ BUt otherwise, I have no complaints so far)
Smaller STM32 have 3 HW breakpoints, medium ones I've used had 6, IDK if
there's more on the fat ones, but I didn't ever really need more.

- Steve


> you feel any better, the tools for the STM8 are not great either (at
> least the Cosmic compiler and STVD IDE). The code generated is HUGE and
> the IDE crashed several times, once eating a file I was working on. Oh,
> and the SWIM interface is "OK" at best. But at least when it was working
> I had fairly modern tool debugging-wise. And the tools still rely on
> JRE. But hey, a week or so later I have a working SP4T illuminated
> pushbutton that uses almost all of the part's 8K of code space. OK,
> perhaps I got carried away with the SP4T's MIDI Implementation. :-)
>
> GB
>
> ------ Original Message ------
> From: "Roman Sowa" <modular at go2.pl>
> To: "Synth-diy" <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
> Sent: 3/8/2022 3:30:32 AM
> Subject: [sdiy] MPLAB-X alternative
>
>> Can anyone recommend an alternative to Microchip's MPLAB-X?
>> All I need is just assembler, simulator, and obviously a way to program
>> ICs with ICD3 or anything else.
>> I will not elaborate why MPLAB-X is a pile of unusable crap, let's say
>> I'd rather give up PICs in total than use it.
>>
>> And the only reason I tried MPLAB-X, and tried several times, was that
>> new devices are not supported in good old MPLAB IDE 8. And the main
>> reason I need new PIC devices is because in contrary to old ones they're
>> available this year, sometimes even in stock at distributors, and also
>> come with more memory and peripherals, not to mention lower price than
>> older PICs.
>>
>> I reckon there's no way to make MPLAN 8 accept new devices by simply
>> writing some new config/definition files, huh?
>>
>> Roman
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