Spin newbie observations

[Bill Henning]

Hi y'all

So I finally got my starter kit in my hands, and hooked it all up ... and I am playing with Spin; but I thought it might be useful to others if I posted what I found as a propeller newbie.

1. I am going thru a KVM to my development box, when I hooked up the PS/2 cables from the KVM to the propeller... the KVM got confused. I was unable to switch away with the default loaded demo.

Workaround: unplugged keyboard and mouse connector from the propeller, gave it its own keyboard.

2. I did not get any audito output except some squeals.

Workaround: forget about audio for now

3. I could not get the loaded demo to respond to any key presses or mouse movements.

Workaround: forget about that demo

(By the way, where is the source to it so I can reload it in the future?)

4. CD had the same version of the propeller tool as I'd already installed, so I did not install it.

Time to take the propeller for a spin... (sorry, pun intended)

My initial projects for the propeller require me to manipulate a bitmapped frame buffer... so I dove right in with the latest version of the VGA graphics demo. I was able to load it and run it easily, well done!

Ofcourse I could not resist modifying it; I wanted to see how fast (or slow) Spin would be for plotting points, drawing lines etc... the answer is, its not very fast, but it is usable if you need to save a cog. After I add some more functions I'll upload the object.
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[Graham Stabler]

2.- what program did you load? Try http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=25&m=136093&g=136111#m136111
3. The "cross-hair" should move with the mouses movement, make sure the mouse is truly PS/2 compatible ditch the KVM to start with. The demo is Graphics_Demo.spin and is in the library directory under examples within the propeller tool folder.

[Beau Schwabe (Parallax)]

Graham,


you said...
My initial projects for the propeller require me to manipulate a bitmapped frame buffer... so I dove right in with the latest version of the VGA graphics demo. I was able to load it and run it easily, well done!

Ofcourse I could not resist modifying it; I wanted to see how fast (or slow) Spin would be for plotting points, drawing lines etc... the answer is, its not very fast, but it is usable if you need to save a cog. After I add some more functions I'll upload the object.


This is the way·ALL·spin code·should be looked at. By all means tear this object apart and see how it works, that's really the way to learn this stuff.·
Originally when I started putting the VGA graphics demo together It was all Spin.· This was more so to get the concept/functionality worked out for
each command before migrating the Spin code·to Assembly.
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Beau Schwabe (mailto:bschwabe@parallax.com)

IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.