🚀 go-pugleaf

jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) writes:


>I'm looking at buying a BASIC compiler for the Intel 8031 (8051). 
>From ads in Circuit Cellar Ink, I found two likely suspects : 

>Binary Technology Inc (508-369-9556) BXC51 for $295

>Systronix Inc (801-487-7412) BCI-51, price not listed. 

>I called for literature, and I'm waiting for it. In the meantime, 
>can someone tell me what one looks for in a microcontroller BASIC ?
>What features are important, what are some things to watch out for ?

>Has anyone used either of these two packages ? Any opinions ? Any other 
>BASIC's I should be looking at ? 

We have the Binary Technology package.  The main intent of this software
is to allow you to compile programs that you might otherwise do in in-
terpreted BASIC on the 8052AHBASIC (8052 with floating point basic in
internal ROM.)  I haven't used it much yet but it looks good and includes
an assembler.  One thing we hadn't counted on when we bought it, though:
the size of the code once compiled.  We had developed an application that
took up all of a 27128 EPROM (16K) in interpreted BASIC, and we figured
compiling it would give us both greater speed and tighter code.  (The
other factor in buying it was that it's much cheaper to buy the 8052
without the onboard BASIC interpreter.)

We did get better speed, though not by nearly as great a factor as
we might have thought - our memory-clear/test routine in our application
ran a little less than twice as fast.  But we were astounded to find that
the compiled code was as large as interpreted code, sometimes larger.

This is puzzling until you realize that the compiler has to stick all
the code to do, say, a PRINT function into your program every time it's
called for, whereas the interpreter has that machine code just once in
it's internal ROM and runs it whenever it finds a PRINT in your program.
Whatever, the point is, don't count on the compiler to cut your code
size.  It was worth it from the standpoint of using cheaper chips (I think
you can use the 8032/8031/8051 with programs written originally for the
8052AHBASIC, depending upon what stuff in the 8052 you use), and for 
better speed.    

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paul marxhausen                              \/               grace 
university of nebraska - lincoln             /\              happens           
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