CodeWarrior Development Tools? Hardly!

[gpio]

No so much tools as a pain in the a**!

It has taken two months to upgrade from 3.1 to 4.5. Unbelievable! And even then I had to email practically anybody I could at Freescale!

I would'nt mind so much if they were any good and did'nt require a mortgage to buy.

If a company like Freescale wants to sell processors then it needs to look after the people who develop for  them and use their tools.

There are other 8/16/32 bit processor makers out there. And it's the software developer who decide which one to use!

[KrisRutecki]

Ahhh, yes. You are absolutly right, however I feel a strong urge to share some of my observations.

Pros: Freescale seems to be slightly more open then other vendors, for example I have not seen anybody else give any information about on-chip debugging. They are the ONLY ONES in fact that provide enough info to allow anybody to just make an in-circuit emulator. This is exactly what I did, since I am bent on using apple... If you want to go that route I can e-mail the executable programmer/emulator Apple software and some Claris Works drawings of the interface. I have alo updated the Crossbow assembler to do HC908 code and you can use that. No "C" compiler...
Cost: free. Software key/protection - none -> you can run it on as many Macs as you please.

Cons: You will need to become a really good assembly programmer if you want to go that route. There is quiet a number of better solutions then the Motorola chips. Have a look at the MSP430 where a C crosscompiler goes for 500USD. They have a really good chip, I think... then you could try the PIC, but here again you will need to get a mortgage to buy the software. As for me, I absolutly despise software keys and protections and will go to great lengths to ensure I don't use such products.