IIRC, when the AVR was first presented, ATMEL had absolutely no support tools available, aside from the eventual IAR tool set, which, then, was so costly nobody who fit in the small-market category could have justified it. The chips looked quite interesting, but the support software offering was so thin that it was nearly impossible to justify in light of the then-current 805x offering. 805x had $100 C compiler and free assemblers, etc, along with simulation tools, etc, all ready for the low-volume and kitchen-table market.

One must keep in mind that many useful and now-powerful product lines grew out of garage operations. Steve Jobs has just recently stepped down as leader of Apple, which company was born in a garage, with decisions made on the basis of what they could afford.

The claim, initially, was made that the AVR was designed "from the ground up" with compilers in mind, yet the only offering for a very long time was a multi-k-dollar compiler and little else. Documentation was thin and details still sketchy.

Let's hope the doc's on this line will be better. After all, I live in the world of backward-compatibility, unlike most of you guys. If things look good, I might even take another shot a trying an ATMEL product. The key, of course, is that there's actually a tool set out there that will make it possible.

RE