I would be very surprised if an assembler written in 1998 would need any changes over the subsequent 12 years. I believe the 8051 has been about since the 1980s.

The C compiler, however, is always open to continuous improvement. And I do not think that anyone would ever claim that SDCC can compete with the commercial C compilers.

SDCC has followed a different line to the regular GCC compilers. GCC works pretty well for most processors and is perfectly usable. As far as I know, SDCC is usable for most of its targets but noticeably less capable than its commercial rivals.

I would guess that SDCC 'collaborators' would spend no effort on ASM. The code generation is better optimised at a higher level. I would also agree that the 'large model' code generation could be peephole improved.

Anyway, I thought that you always used the Keil tools!

David.