IMPORTANT regarding the new C Compiler

Folks -

Microchip has been very generous in their offer to make the new, fully licensed, commercial version of their compiler available to all FIRST teams. They are making it available to us even before it is available through commercial sale. It is incumbent upon us to honor and respect what they have done, and abide by the rules of the license.

The license they have given to FIRST does not allow any team to download the compiler and redistribute it to other teams. No matter how well intentioned, anyone doing so is violating the terms of the license. You are showing that we cannot be trusted as a community, and running the very real risk of forcing Microchip pull the entire deal off the table. Please remove any links to unauthorized distributions of the compiler out of all messages and threads on these boards, and shut down unauthorized distributions of the compiler immediately.

I recognize that it may occasionally be difficult to get through to the Microchip web site to download the new compiler, due to the traffic that they are getting. However, it is important that everyone understand that there are two - AND ONLY TWO - legal ways to get the compiler. You can be patient and try again to download from their web site during the two week period that they will host that option. Or you can wait until after that and request a copy on CD through IFI.

Please folks, let’s try and show that we are deserving of what we have been given here, and let’s not screw this up. If we cannot show that we can abide by the rules, then we will never get another offer like this again. Conversely, if we can demonstrate that we are good stewards of the generosity from Microchip, then perhaps other vendors may follow suit in the future.

-dave

Dave–

Good post. Can you get FIRST to send this out as an Email Blast?

whenever i go to the microchip link where we’re supposed to be able to get the compiler, i get something that asks me for user name, password, and domain, has anyone hit this problem and does anyone know the solution? Thanks.

EDIT: It might be because I’m on a school network and the school firewall is blocking it, but I’m not sure.

standard FTP address format is

ftp://USERNAME:PASSWORD@SERVER/DIRECTORIES

so you might try those provided in the url.

We’ve agreed as a community to not post the ftp addresses such as to respect Microchip’s privacy. Please edit/delete your post and direct others to the link off of the www.usfirst.org website.

hey, i clicked on the link that says “microchip software downloads” on the first homepage. and then a new screen pops up but there is a message that says

“Windows cannot access this folder. Make sure you typed the file name correctly and that you have permission to access this folder. Details: A connection with the server could not be established.”

Is there anything that you guys can do to help me? sorry im just not sure how to do this.

I get the message that windows cannot open file too… what can i do???

You can try it again, it just worked for me now.

If it doesn’t work later, like Dave said, be patient.

Hey I was finally able to download the program and unzip and install it…but how do I run the dang thing? I can’t find how to launch the program.

You also need to install MPLAB 7

Go to the microchip website and search for MPLAB 7, it is a free download.

After installing MPLAB, re-install C18, think of C18 as an MPLAB “plugin*”

  • Don’t crucify me, I know it is not a plug in per se, but it is a good way to think of it

i have been searching all over for someplace to ask my question. For the life of me i can’t find where to get the c compiler off the first site. Could someone post it for me so i can get it plz? Thanks.

As stated at the kickoff, the link is on the http://www.usfirst.org/ homepage and has been since last Saturday.

It might help to know that on http://www.usfirst.org/ homepage, it’s on the left-hand side under the “Kickoff” menu :slight_smile: I had the same problem with finding the link, too, until just now.