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Bjørn

Mon Feb 20 2006, 04:22AM

Registered Member #27 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058

Visual Basic, Visual C# and Visual C++ can be downloaded for free until November 6, 2006:
Visual Studio Express
CD Image files (very large so use the previous link unless you need the files on CD)
The recommended system requirements are Windows 2000 or later with the latest service pack, 1GHz CPU and 256MB RAM.

MPLAB Integrated Development Environment for Microchip PIC microcontrollers.
MPLAB
If you want to know if microcontrollers are something for you then you can try this and run your code in the simulator and see if your head explodes or not. It will run on most computers running Microsoft Windows.

Xilinx ISE WebPACK for FPGA and CPLD design
Works with VHDL, Verilog, ABEL and schematic entry.
http://www.xilinx.com/ise/logic_design_prod/webpack.htm
Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows XP / Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (32-bit only)
I have not tried the Linux version, it is fairly new.

Keil Embedded Development Tools
http://www.keil.com/demo/
Supports ARM, XC16x/C16x/ST10, 251, and 8051 microcontrollers
Free for non-comerical use with some limitations on code size and features.
Requirements: Windows 98 or newer, 128 Megabytes of RAM
I have used the ARM version and it worked fine.

If anyone uses a free language or development software for any platform it would be helpful if they posted the URL and the system requirements in addition to other useful information.

...

Mon Feb 20 2006, 05:00AM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

is there some reason Microsoft is letting us download $5k worth in software for free?
It is times like this when I remember why I love my cable modem (downloading @2.2mb/s

)

Edit
Make sure to get the iso's here, as the automated download requires you to register to use the product for >30days (and the key is hardware dependent). The iso does not require any registration :)

Carbon_Rod

Mon Feb 20 2006, 06:35AM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155

The CD iso image files are up too. I would highly recommend those in case a version rollback may be needed later on.

The MS compiler the company buys is a tax write off. I have had these for years as they gave them to me when the project completed.

The "Get the facts" Fear Uncertainty and Doubt campaign against Linux must have backfired. I guess the AJAX viral marketing is not doing too well. Proof some think about why so many people get excited about an orphan technology so quickly?

wrote ...

is there some reason Microsoft is letting us download $5k worth in software for free?

1.) Vista Driver Development will need Microsoft licensing.
2.) Microsoft has been herding people to subscription-based services for years as itâ€™s a sustainable monopoly model for large companies.
3.) Microsoft Needs the applications ported to vista or the businesses market will simply not upgrade (even with a dirty trick they are rumoured to be pulling later this year.)
4.) Open source is a consistent threat against migrating whole systems away from Microsoft packaged products. They equate recent small fiscal losses to popular projects like Apache', PHP, and GPL SQL. Some would just call this monopoly market saturation a failed business decision.
5.) The patent protection model is only valid against financial business models. And is only effective in fending off threats to a monopolistically competitive firm.
6.) Oracle is rumoured to try and buy out MySQL + IBM is going to donate several more technologies like DB2 to the Open source community. If this happens, the SQL server market may simply evaporate from under Microsoft. â€œThe emperor has no clothesâ€ and the investors may start a bank-run style panic.
7.) Apple iPod has essentially made Apple the new Sony media monster. It has a strangle hold on a sustainable market that is still emerging. Where Microsoftâ€™s Media Player content sales suite and set top services have essentially failed. Microsoft hopes ripping off the RIM market share will somehow regain a subscription base, but they have grown too big to be sustained by this market for too long and Apple is in a favourable position to go satellite wireless and take this area too with a rumoured free .Mac. Good PR for the investors, but a quarterly nightmarish reality check is expected soon.
8.) Microsoftâ€™s X-box rush launch to beat Sony to the market did not indicate the sales base was what they were expecting. Even with Sonyâ€™s root kit PR nightmare, it seems many would still be willing to wait a year and fork over $800 US for a Playstation.
9.) Microsoftâ€™s market share is vulnerable now as it was in 1993. But hey have enough liquid capital to survive a corporate showdown with anyone who would dare challenge them.
10.) Bill Gates is a Robot, Steve Jobs is secretly the Hulk, and people just try and guess what they are up to next. =o)

edit:
11.) They need proof that they still have market share.
12.) They like to send direct marketed Spam

Cheers,

FastMHz

Mon Feb 20 2006, 09:19PM

Registered Member #179 Joined: Thu Feb 16 2006, 02:08AM
Location: Hagerstown, Maryland - Close to Prime Outlets
Posts: 287

There are quite a few free development languages available...an obscure one is Kbasic, which has a free version:

It's supposed to be a VB6 clone.

Another good one is DJGPP (cross platform C, including DOS)

Simon

Mon Feb 20 2006, 10:35PM

Registered Member #32 Joined: Sat Feb 04 2006, 08:58AM
Location: Australia
Posts: 549

Firstly, think GNU.

Other than that, antique versions of TASM and Turbo C, Pascal, etc, have been available for some time. I use them. They are a little buggy with things like files over 64k and other strange beasts people rarely came across in the old days.

Steve Conner

Wed Feb 22 2006, 05:16PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

I just noticed, "Free until November 2006" can be taken two ways:

1) The Visual Studio files are available for free until Nov 2006, then Microsoft will take them offline, but you'll still be able to use them on your computer

or...

2) After Nov 2006, the free version of Visual Studio you downloaded will stop working, until you pay a subscription to reactivate it. Of course Microsoft would never do a thing like that

*edit* On their site they promis not to do it:

wrote ...
12. Do customers who acquire the Visual Studio Express products during the free promotional pricing period have to pay after the first year if they want to continue to use them?

No, as long as you download Visual Studio Express on or before November 7th 2006, you will not have to pay for it.

I told my boss abotu it but he says he prefers Linux

...

Wed Feb 22 2006, 11:49PM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

just keep in mind that the main download for it requires you to download the softare and get the activation key from microsoft, which they probably won't keep up after the nov6 date; I would use the iso's just to be safe...

Ben

Thu Feb 23 2006, 02:42AM

Vigilatny
Registered Member #17 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:47PM
Location: NL
Posts: 158

What they are giving away is not the full version. Anyhow this is like the crack dealer giving free samples. Whatever else there is to say about microsoft, they make a damn nice IDE. It's only hampered by their anticompetitive tendencies. (It only works really well with their "managed" libraries). Fortunately a company has made a plugin to make it work with anything. Whole tomato software.

I have been writing C++ with Qt for irix and windows on and off for 2 years. I generally use the VC++ IDE.

That being said I do like the gnu tools better for debugging, ms's way is just too complicated and undocumented for me(and I can't get it to work often).

Carbon_Rod

Thu Feb 23 2006, 05:47AM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155

I like the GCC tool chains (If I were ever to write a compiler it will use the GNU base.)

The 2.95 too chains for x86 and ARM etc are pretty good,
* The STL C back-port patch made it way better.
* The SGI STL docs are better than MS stuff as they do not use the MS Lib extensions.
* The new tool chain cleans up many problems with 2.95.
* GUI API simply is a pain (server app front ends or Java wrappers are the norm.)
* Thread safe libs are nice when they work.
* String handling safety is still a black art in Linux, but at least its possible.
* No royalties, hidden licence fees, or upgrade hooks.
* In combo with package and version management it is easier to administer upgrades.
* Countless open source code examples you can learn from or import into Open source projects.
* The down side is there is almost no help if you run into problems. You are forced to figure it out on your own most of the time. This is not a bad thing as you learn more relevant information that does not make you dependent on a corporate product.
* Its Free to use, modify, and give away. +1000 karma points to the developers

What MS offers:
* MS puts "virtual" in front of everything and calls it Object Orientated design. ;P
* 15 MB .NET "Hello world!" style bloat code that takes 5 minutes to load.
* Cut and paste coding with huge documented libraries of example code.
* Lots of proprietary standards that make the code unworkable on other compilers.
* 20 years of MS bug fixsâ€¦ insert: If (Logic.Bug == true){return 0;}
* Compiler includes royalty free GUI media and font support.
* Rapid multimedia support and connectivity to user level familiar applications.
* Supports the users host system hardware, software, and file formats.
* It works really nice if you have a deadline.

If I had a choice I would never write server code for Microsoft products, and always run it on a hardened Linux host with a mandatory access control system scheme. You get better value in the long run. Unfortunately, itâ€™s the Pointy Haired Boss user that writes the check and the system has to be... um... user-friendly. ;)

Free development in Win32:

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