WDC Tools Free download!

[lak]

Hi,

The WDC Tools suite is not free after all.
I should have bought it when it was US$40.
I have bought 5 pieces of WDC65C816 for evaluation with FPGAs.
Does that count as using their technology?

================================
Dear Yong Lak,

Thank you for contacting us and for your interest in our technology.

WDC’s C Compiler is something which we have devoted a great deal of support to over the years and does require a license agreement for use. In order to establish proper business development efforts by the WDC team we require that the use of our C compiler be with WDCTools for the development of products using WDC technology. This product is not for use by enthusiasts or clone development at this time.

Can you please provide the WDC with a full description of your project and its market implantations?

Thank you for your time.

Best Regards,

David R. Cramer

Vice President - Business Development

The Western Design Center, Inc.

http://www.WesternDesignCenter.com / WDC65xx.com

65xx Embedded Intelligence Technology

PH: 480 962-4545 Skype: dave.cramerwdc

[GARTHWILSON]

On 4/16/13, WDC wrote on their fb page,

• Would be nice to see him embrace our 65xxTools suite but this is still a really great project! Thx Garth

and I wrote in my second comment,

• As far as the tools go, I would say that although good business requires making good tools available (and the software part should usually be free if you want to attract developers), it also requires allowing the experienced customer to use whatever works for him, if he already has a system. Insisting that he take up something new is sure to drive him away. Learning a new set of tools is a not-so-trivial investment of time, one he won't want to make if he already has something efficient working.
  
  For example, I've never seen an editor in an IDE that's anywhere near as good as MultiEdit which I've been using for 20 years for different processors and languages, yet every manufacturer wants us to use their IDE and learn another decrepit editor (theirs!). MultiEdit has the capability anyway to link into different assemblers and compilers to take you right to the errors, and to highlight structures in various languages and so on, all expandable by the user, meaning I could add my 6502 structure macros. The structure highlighting is not necessary in assembly or Forth with good programming practices though, using indentation to set off structures, proper use of vertical alignment for mental factoring, and whitespace used appropriately. As for errors, I see them flash on the screen during assembly. MultiEdit takes me right to them. (It's usually just a typo.)
  
  Simulators can be useful before the user is really familiar with the instruction set, but I have not found them useful after that.
  
  I have used two commercial 6502/816 macro assemblers, one from 2500AD which I think is now distributed by Avocet, and Cross-32 (C32 for short) which I originally got from Peter Aske at Universal Cross Assemblers but it is now distributed by Data Sync Engineering. As an intensive user, I find bugs in every commercial software package, and these are no exception and I have the caveats on my website; but I still recommend them, especially C32 which is more economical as you don't have to buy separate assemblers for different processors, and they even tell you how to write the tables to assemble for a new processor you might design. (There's your easy solution for a nice assembler if you ever decide to finish the '832 or Terbium!) These have strong (although not quite 100%) adherence to the original recommended standards for 6502 assembly language, unlike some of the free assemblers. For my 6502 work, the assembler I use most is part of my ROM-resident Forth kernel. It's tiny and it's not intended to assemble whole applications, but being part of the Forth system, it naturally allows macros, can assemble on the fly while the same computer is doing something else at the same time, etc..

I was just telling our son a few days ago that it seemed that until a few years ago, WDC seemed to shun hobbyists, as if not wanting to be associated with them because it might make WDC look less professional, but that more recently they seem to have been reaching out to them again, possibly because they realize that that's where you plant the seeds to have people later take their favorite hobby processor into their work and incorporate it into products to be sold in volume. It doesn't make sense to make development tools expensive or try to force anyone into a particular set of tools-- especially if the tools aren't very good. That drives potential customers away, both hobbyist and professional.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

I revisted the download site and it does suggest that the download is free.

[lak]

Yes I did download the "free" tools in Jan 2015.
Only the assemblers and debugger worked. (WinXP and Win7).
TIDE seems to give error upon closing and weird project management.
Anyone downloaded their free tools and the C compilers (command line) able to compile stuff without license key?

[HansO]

lak wrote:

Yes I did download the "free" tools in Jan 2015.
Only the assemblers and debugger worked. (WinXP and Win7).
TIDE seems to give error upon closing and weird project management.
Anyone downloaded their free tools and the C compilers (command line) able to compile stuff without license key?

Yes, The C compilers work via the command line.

TIDE is broken, delivered untested and useless as is. David Cramer of WDC promised by in a PM feb 2015 that WDC developers would look into it but I did not hear since that mail of any progress.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

HansO wrote:

Yes, The C compilers work via the command line.

TIDE is broken, delivered untested and useless as is. David Cramer of WDC promised by in a PM feb 2015 that WDC developers would look into it but I did not hear since that mail of any progress.

I personally don't care for TIDE all and would just prefer to have a stand-alone assembler and C compiler. The rest of TIDE is, in my opinion, cumbersome and non-intuitive.

[White Flame]

Are there any opinions on cc65 vs WDC C compiler?

Obviously the latter would give direct support to WDC itself, but I'm sure its chip sales far outweigh a few hobbyist tool purchases.

[BigEd]

I think cc65 only targets the 6502, whereas WDC's compiler is the only (fully working) one which targets the 65816.