Bascom update yes or no?

wimapon · Joined: 26 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: Meedhuizen

Hi,

I am using Bascom version 1.11.8.2 for about 8 or 9 years now. For all kind of usage.

If i buy the latest update of Bascom, will all my old programs still work without change?

Wim

(BASCOM-AVR version : 1.11.8.2 , Latest : 2.0.7.8 )

Meister · Joined: 27 May 2010 Posts: 314

Besides extensions, improvements and bug fixes,
what I darkly remember as a major change is that from one version to the next (don't know at which version) some port outputs would come out inverted (in order to be more compatible with some standards). That caused motors to run in opposite direction compared to compilations with the previous versions. That was discussed in this forum (I don't remember the link).
The recommendation was to always carefully read the changes log which might take a while if you do a large version jump....
Regards, Meister

wimapon · Joined: 26 Oct 2008 Posts: 10 Location: Meedhuizen

Thanks Meister,
The change in output for some ports is not too bad.. I can live with that.. just change a 1 into a 0.

What do you mean with "some extensions" ?

Wim

Meister · Joined: 27 May 2010 Posts: 314

AdrianJ · Joined: 16 Jan 2006 Posts: 2470 Location: Queensland

I find most of my old programs compile perfectly. Occasionally you will get a compiler error, where the new compiler is a bit more finicky about syntax. Usually pretty obvious. There are quite a few new reserved words, which will give you an error if you use one as a variable. For instance the recent discussion on register names. All registers R0...R31 are now directly available by name, but that means any variable you named R0..R31 will be treated as a register. That will cause a compiler error on the DIM statement referencing that name.

Its worth upgrading, the new IDE is far better to use, and there are many more built-in functions for handling external devices.

Re upgrading, I thought the policy was that once you have a license, upgrades are free forever.

But I would still recommend that you install a new version into another folder, so that if disaster strikes, you can revert to the old version.

albertsm · Joined: 09 Apr 2004 Posts: 4966 Location: Holland

It happens to be the case that MCS exists 20 year this year. All this time we offered updates and support for free.
But this does not mean that this will remain forever the case. forever is a very long time Smile

The official update policy is that one can update at least for 2 years for free. So that is guaranteed. If you can update after that it depends if you have registered within 1 year after purchase.

Some times very old licenses are registered, but these get the status 'expired'. mainly because we can not check if these copies are bought by the user or that they were bought on ebay.
But if you registered 20 years ago, and you know your user/pwd you can simply update. Update process is described in the help/wiki.
On the other hand if you did not update your email address and you lost your user/pwd, the system can not send an email to your new address (because of abuse we only use a registered email) you can not update anymore.
If that is within 1-2 years of purchase, support will help, but after that there is no help. offering free help is fine but not when it is eating up all time.

A good reason for update is that we only support the last version.

Evert :-) · Joined: 18 Feb 2005 Posts: 2107

I never update the old version, i will install the new version in a new directory.
In my source code there's an note with what Bascom version the code is compiled and tested.
When there need to be a minor change or bug fix I compile it with the version noted in the code, with this there's not a real need to check the complete code all the way again.