Re: Re: Digi's treatment of Rabbit products

Well, I stand corrected. I honestly did not recall that the R4/5/6k lines were done under Digi.And has it been 10-years since Digi bought Rabbit? Wow! Time flies.  If compiler updates are being made, why doesn't the Digi website show any compiler updatesor bug fixes?   I always upgraded to the latest version of compiler whenever they were released. According tomy records, v9.62 was released in 2008, with one patch in 2011. So it's been 8-years since the last release of DC9 and 5-years since the last bug fix. That doesn't strike me as much support. DC10 is little more recent. It looks like DC 10.72 was released in early 2013 (maybe late 2012), with a patch released 6-months or so later. Also, my experience with Digi tech support the last few years is much like the original poster, no response.  They used to respond in the early days after the buyout. But my experience is thatit has slowly trickled off to nothing. The last few times I pinged them with a question I receivedno response. I admit that I don't have a lot of tech support requirements anymore. Partly due to having solvedor found work-arounds for most issues and partly due to my company's moving to a new platform.  And the move to a new platform is primarily due to the lack of support from Digi and the memorywall. We are up against the memory wall with the R3k series. The R3k is capable of addressing more than512k, why can't Digi release new modules that expand the program memory of the R3k series?  I really like the R6k modules, but you can't program them over Ethernet using a utility like Scott's.You have to set a URL and tell the module go look for an update. This is a slow process and doesn'twork for field upgrades. The RCM3000, which we use in quite a number of products, is only 10Base-T, and I believe it is onlyhalf-duplex . We continue to get complaints from customers about it's poor performance, and our solution for those that are unwilling to accept the performance is to swap it out for an RCM3900 whichis 10/100 Base-T and full duplex. Why can't the RCM3000 be upgraded with a better network controller?Why can't all the R3k modules get a speed boost by using faster crystals? They are way under clocked. Then there's the issue of DC introducing or exposing compiler bugs and not producing good code when the compiled program starts approaching the high 400k of program memory. Moving a function from oneplace in the program to another is enough to either cause a compiler error or remove a compiler error. And using the DC bugger with DC9 is a roll of the dice as to whether it will work or not. There are many times when it just won't connect to the Rabbit, or loses track of the program forcing you to close it and reopen, or taking a single step that never returns requiring the use of the Program Manager to kill it. It won't evaluateexpressions any longer. It won't show variable values when the mouse hovers over the variable name anylonger. I have to use printf statements to view variables.  It would be nice if some simple C++ constructs could be added to DC. Things like being able to declarea variable and initialize it on the same line, being able to declare a variable anywhere in a function, and being able to overload functions. Being able to use pointers in DC9 to access extended memory, like you can do with DC10, would also be nice. The list is large. I did not know of the work in Github. I will check it out.  Steve  From: "Tom Collins [email protected] [rabbit-semi]" <[email protected]>
 To: [email protected] 
 Sent: Monday, January 4, 2016 12:22 PM
 Subject: [rabbit-semi] Re: Digi's treatment of Rabbit products
 
 
    Steve,
I think you need to check your timeline.  
Digi bought Rabbit/Z-World over 10 years ago in May 2005: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20050526005706/en/Digi-International-Acquires-Rabbit-Semiconductor-Highly-Complementary
The first core modules using the Rabbit 4000 weren't released until 2006 (http://www.soccentral.com/results.asp?CatID=552&EntryID=18658), so all of the Rabbit 4000, 5000 and 6000 products, and every single version of Dynamic C 10 were released when Rabbit was part of Digi.  That's a far cry from "no new modules" and "no compiler updates".
I worked for Digi from 2008 to 2014, and was there for many compiler updates and product releases in that time.  When I started in January 2008, I was working on Dynamic C 10.40 and the BL4S1xx line of single-board computers.  In 2007 I had worked on the RCM4200 product as a consultant.  While an employee, I even recall updated Rabbit 3000 core modules getting released.  I was part of a huge effort to add better ANSI C support around Dynamic C 10.64.
I'm not sure of release dates for the various Dynamic C 9 versions, but it's likely some of the later versions (9.52 and 9.62?) came out after May of 2005.
I'm consulting for Digi again, on Rabbit products, and you can see the results up on GitHub.  I have been fixing bugs, and even working on supporting TLS 1.2 in Dynamic C 10.
Dynamic C 9: https://github.com/digidotcom/DCRabbit_9Dynamic C 10: https://github.com/digidotcom/DCRabbit_10
If there are things you want to see happen with the Rabbit products, let me know and I'll push it up the chain.
-Tom

On Jan 4, 2016, at 11:39 AM, Steve Trigero seecwriter-/[email protected] [rabbit-semi] wrote:
I don't think Digi cares about Rabbit sales. Since buying Rabbit/Z-World, they havedone nothing with the product line. No new modules, no compiler updates, no bug fixes,and very little response to tech support queries. I think they were just getting rid of thecompetition when they bought the product line.
Steve

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