Do I need to purchase a license to use ZBasic for esp8266?

JimG · Post by **JimG** » 25 March 2017, 10:07 AM

If I understood correctly in the license thread, one only needs to purchase a license for doing atmegas, not the esp, correct?

dilettante · Post by **dilettante** » 25 March 2017, 23:57 PM

I'm new here too but so far it seems to work for me without a "generic target license." Perhaps it is considered "native mode" and thus no license needed?

Post by **dkinzer** » 26 March 2017, 7:10 AM

dilettante wrote:Perhaps it is considered "native mode" and thus no license needed?

In general, the generic target license is required for target devices that are not purchased from ZBasic/Elba. The ESP8266 is an exception to that policy.

On the other hand, a generic target device such as the Atmel ATmega168 does require a generic target license (and it is a native mode target). The descriptor "native mode" is used for targets for which native code is generated by the ZBasic compiler. The original ZX devices such as the ZX-24p host an interpreter and they execute a type of "p-code" rather than native code.