Lpc2000

Hi Anton,

I'm an ex-IAR user myself.

> I agree. We had an IAR 8051 C Compiler, which used a parallel port dongle.
> When after a few years we had to update some old software which was written
> for this compiler, the dongle would not work on our new maschines. IAR was
> less than helpful, and in the end we had to dig out an old 33MHz 486 machine
> to get the compiler to work. We learnt our lesson then -  No development tools
> that need a dongle or any other sort of protection that ties it to a specific component
> of a machine. 

Most IAR dongles I had dealt with so far (4) never ran on a decent newer machine.
The dongle utility never worked properly, the IAR disty voluteered that.
However, the magic :
SET SSI_ACT = 100,100,100 in autoexec.bat always fixed it to "see" the dongle.

But when they changed to these grey dongles (Sentinel ?), combined with
a page-long *extra* activation key, things got a bit rich.
I had huge probelms on MSP430 with that new license scheme, and it never got
sorted out.
The green colour "Activator" dongles always had worked fine.
With MSP430 Sentinel, at regular occasions an attempt to compile (F9) would paralyse 
the PCs for at least a minute, and then a cryptic license error was issued.
Had to do with the JTAG thru LPT1 - removing (via switch box) dongle from LPT1, 
and reconnecting would always fix it (plus the JTAG would have frozen in the interim too,
target could not run)

It's like with cars : you buy a cheap bomb, and it breaks - big deal ...
But when you buy a fairly high-end car, pay good $$$, and it constantly breaks down,
you literally want to BOOT it a lot :-)

-- Kris


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