HIDmaker FAQ
| HIDmaker FS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) |
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HIDmaker FS sounds too good to be true. Does it actually work? It may sound too good to be true, but our customers find that it works brilliantly. We've worked hard to keep it that way, and to help our customers when they run into problems. HIDmaker FS has been used to make a number of devices used by the military, in the US and in other countries. So if it didn't work, we wouldn't be able to stay in business. We have added written and video testimonials from real customers in various places throughout our site, as well as a Showcase section that displays real products that our customers have developed with our tools. We hope that these will put your mind at ease, and help settle any doubts that you might have. But if those won't convince you, then please consider this: our products are also sold by Microchip itself, in their MicrochipDIRECT online store. If our products didn't work, or if we didn't provide great tech support for our customers, Microchip wouldn't sell our stuff. It's as simple as that! And if you're STILL not convinced, then check out our
Can I get a time-limited evaluation version of HIDmaker FS? Sorry, no, we cannot do that. We have a problem with trial editions. Our software is so powerful that it can generate your whole project in a matter of minutes, so if we were to give out trial editions that can actually generate code, no one would have any need to buy the product! For that reason, the HIDmaker Test Drive section of our web site contains a demo version of the HIDmaker FS program that shows you what the program is like, but which does not generate any actual code. The demo board like Microchip's PicDem FS USB board, and a matched PC program that knows how to talk to that device. It also provides instructions, and some experiments you can try with the demo.
Is there a student version of HIDmaker FS? At the moment, we do not have a student version that can be bought by an individual student. However, we CAN offer the next best thing. If you are a student at an accredited college or university or technical school, please have your professor contact us to buy a copy of HIDmaker FS that you can use for a student project. That way, you don't have to pay a thing, and your university gets a tool that other students can use as well, under the direction of a faculty member.
Is there an educational discount for using HIDmaker FS in a class? If you are an educator, we'd love to help you make use of HIDmaker FS in a classroom setting. Please contact us for volume discount pricing.
Absolutely! We guarantee that our generated code will work correctly, perfectly, every time, or we will make it right! If you can show evidence that you contacted us for technical support, followed our instructions repeatedly on a known good microcontroller board (like a commercial demo board), and yet were still not able to get your first project working, we will refund your money up to 90 days after purchase.
Definitely! Many of our customers find that our tech support is the best support they have ever seen. We are determined not to let you fail.
How do I get a Vendor ID so I can sell my product? In order to be able to sell a product that uses USB, you must obtain the rights to commercially use a combination of numbers that comprise a Vendor ID and Product ID. There are a number of ways you can do this:
Do I need to pay for a Vendor ID if I am not selling a product, but only experimenting in my own lab? We don't think so. We have never heard any reports of any sort of "USB Police" breaking down your door if you use a Vendor ID that is not your own, as long as you are only experimenting in your own lab. In this situation, the key is to find a Vendor ID / Product ID pair that is not already registered by your PC for some other product that you already use. If you pick a combination of numbers that your PC already knows about, then you may create a conflict. The next time you plug in that other device (which really owns that Vendor ID / Product ID pair), the device may not function correctly, because Windows may think that it is your experimental device. IF YOU DO USE SOME VENDOR ID / PRODUCT ID COMBINATION THAT IS NOT YOUR OWN, YOU DO SO ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. Make sure that you never give software or a device made from this experimental work to anybody else, without changing it to use a Vendor ID / Product ID combination that you are entitled to use. DISTRIBUTING A DEVICE OR SOFTWARE THAT USES SOME OTHER COMPANY'S VENDOR ID / PRODUCT ID WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION COULD SUBJECT YOU TO LEGAL ACTION. TRACE SYSTEMS WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS.
Is there a royalty for selling products that use HIDmaker code? No, there is no royalty for using HIDmaker's generated code in your products. HIDmaker FS gives you a permanent, royalty-free, paid-up right to use the code that it generated, with your modifications, in binary form in your products.
Are there any license restrictions? Yes, there are a few. In plain language, the License Agreement prohibits you from using our product against us. You are prohibited from using HIDmaker FS to create a development tool that competes against us. Also, you may not publish the source code that HIDmaker FS has generated for you, with or without modifications. HIDmaker does things that nobody else knows how to do, so we don't want our generated source code flying around the Internet. Our customers do not find this to be a problem, because they too want to protect the source code for their product.
Yes. We are instituting an low annual maintenance fee for technical support and upgrades, which starts a year after you purchased our product. Whether or not you purchase a support package has no bearing on your right to use the tool that you have purchased, or your right to sell products that have been made with it.
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