why to turn away from CCS

[coellen_d]

Hello,
I will use this forum to talk about my experiences wit CCS in the last 12 years.
I startet to program in C on PICs with CCS after years of laborious ASM-programming. So CCS PCWH was a realy good tool to work with, especially the ICD40 was very helpful for my Projects. There were many bugs in the System of course, but I was able to get my work done with the help of the forum or somtimes with contact to CCS.
In the meantime I had to work also with MPLAB Harmony on a PIC32-Project. So I was able to see the differences between both IDEs. I think MPLAB is often too exaggerated, especially the crowd of differnt named functions or macros for the same operation are not useful to work with.
So I was always glad to do programming on PIC16 and PIC18 in CCS.
In 2020 I decided to buy a new PCWH and ICD80.
At this time the trouble starts: I tried a first little project with the wizzard and found it very nice to automatically implement a little test of a blinking LED.
It ended up with a compiler error, although I did not write any code in that test. What kind of IDE should that be?
I managed to get my project running, but all my work was accompanied by Connection problems with ICD, random crashes of the IDE, spooky Message windows during compiling and so on.
Yesterday I had to start programming a PIC16F882 project. The following happened: The Wizzard did not generate the Fuse settings at all, after doing this by hand the PIC was running correct, but the IDE didn' t recognize this and always throwed an error in the meaning: program can not run, chec osc setting. That was completely wrong. And before you ask: of course I used an USB isolator. Even with the controller connected alone and directly to the ICD and powered from it the error consists. Of course using a program with internal RC in this case. After hours of searching for the problem I decided to do my work with MPLAB. What should I say? That was the best decision at all.
No problems with the ICD3, fast compiling and connection to the target, no spooky errors which can only get fixed by restart the IDE and of course no useless animated icons. So I am asking myself, what to do in future with the completely useless CCS? I will not start any new project with this IDE.
Unfortunately I payed about 600,-€ (Germany) for PCWH and ICD80. A bad investment.
Thanks for your interest,
a completly frustrated CCS-user

[temtronic]

I've never used the 'wizard' in 2+ decades. To me it's the same as 'Proteus'. Some program,er 'app', that someone else wrote to work their way NOT mine. Their idea of 'defaults' won't be what I require,so why use it ? Really how much time is saved using a wizard ?
For my PIC18F46K22 projects I have a 'fuses' file that has every fuse coded, one per line, serves as a known working base. Also have the '1Hz LED' program as a 'base'. I simply copy both ,rename as 'newporject123'... and code away.
I also copy the old source,save as 'versionxxx',make changes, compile,test. I repeat this process until it works 100%. yes, I can have 100+ versions ,of 6-8 files) taking up harddrive space BUT I can 'go back' to the previous version when something that used to work doesn't now. usually it's due to my bad typing.....or = instead of == , : instead of ; . BTW getting old isn't the fun they said it would be.
Never used an ICD unit,simulator or 'debug' version , prefer to use the real world for testing.
yes, I'm a 'dinosaur' . My code isn't 'proper C but it works.

[Ttelmah]

I must admit, I do suspect you have a corruption somewhere in your installed
compiler, or a connection problem. Generally MPLAB gives me hundreds of
times the problems that the CCS IDE does, However the ICD-80, has an
issue (which CCS istill gnore), that it does not like the length of the cable they
supply with it. I get issues like you are describing with this if I use the
CCS supplied cable. If I use an ICD-U64, I do not get these, or if I replace
the cable with one half the length the ICD-U80 works OK. I think this unit
pushes the communication rate a little too fast with the cable they supply
and this gives all sorts of problems.... :

[dyeatman]

I have been using the ICD-U64 for years with a wide range of PICS with no
issues at all. I also suspect it is the ICD-U80.
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[jeremiah]

It's also worth noting that if you are switching between CCS and Microchip programmers, they sometimes require different pull up resistors on the programming interface. The values in the MCU datasheet normally reflect values for the microchip brand programmers. CCS programmers sometimes require different pullups. I believe the CCS programmers want 47k pullups on MCLR:

[Ttelmah]

Yes, 22K minimum. The same applies to the latest Microchip ones now, but
their older units all worked OK with lower resistors.