Hi Stevef,
Wow glad to see another programmer in here. I am using embedded visual tools version 3 by Microsoft. It has both VB and C++. The best part its free and can be found here.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=f663bf48-31ee-4cbe-aac5-0affd5fb27dd&displaylang=en
There is a version 4 and a .NET version, but I haven't checked yet to see if they will work with the epods yet.
Now long ago, they when you downloaded version 3 it contained everything you needed but now it looks like you need to download the SDK separately. The SDK can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04A04175-3DB7-434D-96A5-1F04887D0D0E&displaylang=en
I attempted these 2 downloads and I think I ran into a problem becase the the SDK says it is for visual studio 6.0 so I think I fussed with it for a bit and then ordered the CD for a whooping $7.85 from Microsoft and it had what I needed. You can order the CD from here:
\https://microsoft.order-5.com/trialstore/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=MSTrialandEval&category%5Fname=Developer+Tools&product%5Fid=X09%2D17298&cookie%5Ftest=1
The awesome thing about this product is it has an emulator so you can compile and test out your code on your PC first then when it is good to go you can compile in release and copy over the release files to the epods. I usually always stay connected with the null modem cable and then when you are doing a build for the MIPS it will copy the executable into the "My Epods" root and any dependent dlls into the \Windows directory. The dlls are not registered COM dlls so you can move them over to the storage card. If you are doing things that cannot be done in the emulator (e.g. my RegSet program, since it is modyifying the registry of the epods) you can have the null modem cable hooked up and run in debug mode on the epods. This is painful to do though. It takes a long time (30 seconds) to get everything stopped at a breakpoint. The first time you do it you think it is locked. Also, if your program has dependcies on MFCCE211.dll or OLECE211.dll, the debug versions (MFCCE211d.dll and OLECE211d.dll) have to be transferred over and they are about 1.2 MB each so it hogs up a lot of the precious epods memory. Once you are compiling in release you can then delete (or move to the compact flash card) the OLECE211d.dll and MFCCE211D.dlls
Before you do some programming can you verify what dlls are on your epods as it stands now? I want to figure out what dlls are there for most people so I know which ones I will have to post on the Yahoo site if I make any other programs. The questions I have are:
1> In \Windows do you have MFCCE212.dll or MFCCE211.dll? Or do you have both?
2> In \Windows do you have olece212.dll or olece211.dll? Or do you have both?
Also, in case any out there is curious. Up above in this thread I mentioned that my RegSet.EXE program requires Coredll.dll and that it is in \Windows on the epods. I got this information from a development tool I use called dependency walker. As it turns out, there is no such dll on the epods that I can find so I do not think this dependcey walker is woking correctly on these MIPS builds. I will have to look into this further.
Let me know how far along you get setting it up and getting it to work and post any questions that you have.
-Tim