Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
I wish we had the P2 already — Parallax Forums

I wish we had the P2 already

I've had my super project on the backburner for a couple of years now and one day when the P2 is available I'd like to try to make it work in that project. But I guess I just have to be patient except that there are other projects that come along where you think "this would be so much better with the P2". Well I have one I'm looking at this week which really begs for all 16 P2 cogs plus interrupts, it's a scary realtime "better get it right at just the right time" or watch and see what 600kVA unleashed in closed quarters will do.

Of course I will use the P1 or a few of them, but still, I wish we had the P2 already.

Comments

  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,545
    edited 2015-12-02 05:43
    600kVA ? ... wait until you get to the 1MVA mark using only 6 Li-Poly batteries as your only source of power.

    We can all wish for a lot of things... but to echo the words of wisdom that will forever echo in my head spoken by someone I once looked up to ... "I have no expectations".

    And to give credit where Credit is due, Chip did not utter those words.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,140
    .. Well I have one I'm looking at this week which really begs for all 16 P2 cogs plus interrupts, it's a scary realtime "better get it right at just the right time" or watch and see what 600kVA unleashed in closed quarters will do.
    There is always P1V, which can cover some middle ground between P1 and P2. This does not sound large volume, price sensitive, but more 'do it right' project ?

  • Yeah, only 600kVA, per phase, continuous, yeah it's just PNuts.
  • evanhevanh Posts: 15,126
    Ah, but is it also in MWh?
  • Yeah, only 600kVA, per phase, continuous, yeah it's just PNuts.

    You are well into the crazy range, where faults can become plasma and arc flash, so I wish you the best and trust that all due diligence is being taken.

    With regards to your original point - wishing that you had the P2 - are there any non-proprietary project details that you can offer for perspective on how the P2 would allow you to do it better? I guess what I am getting at, is how much of the longing for P2 is based on thinking of problems from the P2 vantage point?

    I only ask, because once I had momentum on thinking of problems from a P1 vantage point, I was quickly frustrated by thinking about applying a non-parallel approach. Maybe I am the only one that gets caught thinking about the elegant solution instead of the perfectly adequate one?
  • Peter JakackiPeter Jakacki Posts: 10,193
    edited 2015-12-03 12:03
    One of the advantages of the P2, any of the proposed P2s in fact, is more memory, more I/O, faster, and the fact that it's a Propeller, not an ARMxxx. Absolutely delightful to be able to dedicate a cog as a smart peripheral and know that it doesn't need to rely on special hardware which if it did and that hardware was documented, that we are so pleased that we didn't have to study hundreds of pages of documentation and then also the special "gotchas" too, including the ones you have to find out about yourself. No, there is the cog nice and simple, 8 or more of them and this is the way it interacts with the hub, nice and simple.

    All this "nice and simple" is important from the viewpoint of being able to design and verify for reliability, both functionally and deterministically. You know that the dedicated cog will just work, even though we may change stuff elsewhere. This is never the case with any interrupt and peripheral heavy single core CPU, especially those with caches.

  • I am playing devil's advocate a bit here, but you concisely articulated the reasons that I transitioned to P1. So, it seems that you really just need a bigger/faster P1, right?

    I find myself increasingly fascinated with P2, not because of my own need, but rather as a voice-of-the-customer study. So, I appreciate you lending your voice!
  • It is rather interesting in that way. I'm an observer in the same sense. What I find particularly notable is the claso of viewpoints and priorities gets sorted into something pretty reasonable and effective. The group involved is fairly diverse too. Can't wait to see it all play out in real chip land.

  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2015-12-03 21:04
    For a time I made pretty heavy use of ARM Cortex chips because they were so cheap. But going back and adding or revising features tended to upset everything. This is because everything was so interdependent in the first place.

    With the Propeller you can jackhammer the pavement while, one meter away, the world's most sensitive seismometer doesn't record a single jiggle. I like that.
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    I have valued the P1 mostly because it made learning so much fun. The P2 is already fun... what I can't wait for is to see what happens when the entire group of P1 advocates starts going through Parallax's products and starts modifying them slightly or just throws a P2 at them to show what more can be done. 3D ultra-sound anyone?
Sign In or Register to comment.