Not at all. They don't lose much money by ignoring you. They are selling to just about everyone else. Most people either buy on recommendation, or manages just fine to evaluate the compiler in the available code space.

Next thing - a full edition that has a time limit you can tamper with can quickly reach a torrent site in which case a huge number of people will have free availability of the compiler forever. A significant percent of people would not buy what they can find for free, even if illegal.

Third - you are comparing with a Solitaire game. Is the price similar? For cheap programs, I just buy. For expensive programs I first think a lot and google a lot and checks forums. I would have expected that Solitaire program to be a cheap program. The web page seems to agree: "The 725 games are only US$24.95." Are you really comparing the price model for a $25 toy program with a very expensive professional tool? I wouldn't want to spend much time to look for a cracked (and possibly virus-ridden) copy of a $25 program. I'm afraid quite a lot of people would be willing to spend significant amounts of time to get their hands on a free C51 toolchain.


It can't be too hard to decode that single sentence I wrote. I just said that it is trivial to calculate timings for a 8051 in relation to more complex processors, so how can it be so hard to evaluate the compiler?


I don't expect I will ever see a compiler simulating a processor. Kind of wrong tool for the task ;)

What tools are you using now to simulate everything down to the nearest clock cycle when you write in assembler? I still claim that the same tool (your head or whatever) should be able to evaluate with the same precision the result of the assembler instructions from the compiler.