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Toby Seckshund
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 481

Posted 8/3/2009 3:28 AM (GMT -8)

So many of these are going to be sold/built.

What is the plural for Morpheus, and its collective?

Style and grace : Nil point

Nick Mueller
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2007
Total Posts : 697

Posted 8/3/2009 3:37 AM (GMT -8)

> What is the plural for Morpheus

Morpheus is a god, so there is no plural.

Nick

Never use force, just go for a bigger hammer!

The DIY Digital-Readout for mills, lathes etc.:
YADRO

Toby Seckshund
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 481

Posted 8/3/2009 3:49 AM (GMT -8)

I thought that he was one of the sons, of the god of sleep. He was tasked with dreams.

Any way I was just trying to be chirpy, for a Monday, at work ...

Style and grace : Nil point

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/3/2009 9:15 AM (GMT -8)

I hope so! (and think so)

Hmm... Morpheiii?

Toby Seckshund said...
So many of these are going to be sold/built.

What is the plural for Morpheus, and its collective?

Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
Morpheus & Mem+ Advanced dual Propeller SBC with XMM and 256 Color VGA - PCB, kit, A&T available NOW!
www.mikronauts.com - my site 6.250MHz custom Crystals for running Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/8/2009 1:18 PM (GMT -8)

The bad news:

I have decided to delay posting the "Morpheus System Architecture and Developer's Guide" until August 17th

The good news:

The reason for the delay is that I will incorporate Proteus and Propteus information as well, I should be receiving those boards around the 12th.

You will like them

hinv
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2007
Total Posts : 487

Posted 8/8/2009 4:03 PM (GMT -8)

Hi Bill,

I would recommend a surface mount version earlier rather than later. The reason is because the Prop II is coming down the pike. When it comes out, it will make a lot of the features morpheus offers moot.
I would think that you could do a surface mount version with morpheus and mem+ on the same board.

Just my 10 bits
Doug

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/8/2009 7:21 PM (GMT -8)

Hi Doug,

Your guess is correct, the idea is that the surface mounted board would combine Morpheus and Mem+ ... with a couple of additional features thrown in for good measure.

I am planning to make a surface mount version, but I have to sell a fair number of the current boards first in order to be able to do so. Currently my best estimate is that a surface mounted assembled Morpheus is at least a year away. I cannot afford to "Osborne" myself, nor do I have the money to have it made now.

The problem is that I will have to have the surface mount version manufactured assembled; this not only involves non-recurring engineering fees, it also involves the cost of parts in the minimum order quantities - which in more cases than I like is 1000 pieces per BOM line item.

100 units is the minimum assembled manufacturing run, however the more units I order at once, the more the NRE's get amortized, and ordering 500-1000 assembled units results in a lower price per unit.

As far as Propeller 2 goes, I intend to have a Morpheus 2 featuring it - and I would be interested in hearing what you mean by "it will make a lot of the features Morpheus offers mooot" - as Morpheus/Mem+ have a lot more memory, have flash, RTC, expansion bus etc; frankly the only part of Morpheus that Propeller II moots is the 256 color VGA graphics, and only partially so, as it still needs more memory for the higher resolution bitmap modes. Let's not forget that optimistically Propeller II is a year away, and it may very well not show up for two years.

If I had pre-paid orders for at least 100 surface mounted assembled Morpheus/Mem+ combo boards, I would be able to deliver them in approximate twelve to sixteen weeks - but short of having that money in my hands, I cannot do it in less than approx 1 year.

I am not doing this on the side, I have been working full time (actually significantly more than full time) on Morpheus and related software since February of this year - all self financed.

Best Wishes,

Bill

hinv said...
Hi Bill,

I would recommend a surface mount version earlier rather than later. The reason is because the Prop II is coming down the pike. When it comes out, it will make a lot of the features morpheus offers moot.
I would think that you could do a surface mount version with morpheus and mem+ on the same board.

Just my 10 bits
Doug

hinv
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2007
Total Posts : 487

Posted 8/8/2009 8:25 PM (GMT -8)

Hi Bill,

What features would be moot:
With 64pin, memory attachment wouldn't be nearly as difficult and wouldn't need latches and other logic ergo
you wouldn't need 2 props ergo no pins would need to be used up in communicating between props.
with more memory on the prop, there are applications that would fit in the prop2 without external memory.

we don't know how soon the prop2 will be coming. We were told "about a year" several months ago.

I understand your constraints. I was just pointing out the opportunity you have that will go away when Prop2 comes.

Thanks,
Doug

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/8/2009 8:39 PM (GMT -8)

Hi Doug,

I'd love for the latches to go away! I am very much looking forward to that!

Morpheus 2 will still be a dual-Propeller 2 design, I have a LOT of interesting features planned for it - I have been playing with a paper design ever since some details emerged, and with Chip's high speed serial link, fewer pins will be needed between props.

You are right, far more apps will fit within the enlarged hub, however I still think a lot of people will appreciate the ability to have many megabytes of memory

I still think that the current Morpheus design will still be quite viable with Prop2 out - remember, Prop2 will be approx. 1.5x to 2x the cost of the current Propeller, and it will be surface mount only.

Best Wishes,

Bill

hinv said...
Hi Bill,

What features would be moot:
With 64pin, memory attachment wouldn't be nearly as difficult and wouldn't need latches and other logic ergo
you wouldn't need 2 props ergo no pins would need to be used up in communicating between props.
with more memory on the prop, there are applications that would fit in the prop2 without external memory.

we don't know how soon the prop2 will be coming. We were told "about a year" several months ago.

I understand your constraints. I was just pointing out the opportunity you have that will go away when Prop2 comes.

Thanks,
Doug

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/13/2009 8:00 PM (GMT -8)

Introducing Proteus - a new prototyping board.

While Proteus does have MORPHBUS, EXP1 and EXP2 headers so that you can add it to a Morpheus system, it is entirely usable on its own, or in conjunction with any other 4"x3.05" Parallax mounting pattern prototyping board - for example ProtoBoard, ProtoBoard USB, SX, Stamp and other boards.

Look at the JPEG image below to see the top of the board.

Special features:

- MORPHBUS connector
- EXP1 & EXP2 connectors (labels are reversed, sorry)
- Unique layout to optimize 0.3" and 0.6" dip spacing
- Interleaved Vcc/Gnd bus (the zig-zag pads that are connected on top are Vcc, the ones on the bottom are GND)
- single row header support on the bottom of the board
- easy to configure for servo headers
- easy to mount 2x5 (or 2xN) headers
- area for voltage regulation above MORPHBUS header

Cost:

Bare PCB only: $12.95 USD (plus s/h)
PCB with two 1x10 female stacking headers and one 2x20 stacking header: $17.95 (plus s/h)

Available: NOW

Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
Morpheus & Mem+dual Prop SBC w/ 512KB kit $119.95, 2MB memory IO board kit $89.95, both kits $189.95
www.mikronauts.com - my site 6.250MHz custom Crystals for running Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller

Image Attachment :

web-proteus.jpg 698KB (image/jpeg)

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Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/16/2009 12:32 PM (GMT -8)

I've finished the "Morpheus System Architecture and Developer's Guide"!

I am just proof reading it today, and will post it either late tonight, or early tomorrow morning.

I lost the original schematics when I was cleaning up my Eagle directories in the wee hours just before UPEW - and I could not find the backup DVD! Sapieha very generously offered to draw new schematics for me when he found out - and starting with a really old partial schematics and some chatting he did a wonderful job of making new schematics; so the manual has full schematics for both Morpheus and Mem+

I am calling this version "v0.90" as I still plan to add to it over time, based on your feedback of what you want more information on.

Thank you for your support,

Bill

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/16/2009 10:08 PM (GMT -8)

The "Morpheus System Architecture and Developer's Guide" manual has been posted to the downloads page on my site.

http://mikronauts.com/downloads/

I welcome your feedback, and look forward to your suggestions on how I can improve the manual.

Now I can write some nice video drivers

Thanks for your support,

Bill

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/17/2009 8:46 AM (GMT -8)

Ok, now that the Developer's Guide is finally out, I can get back to drivers.

I've started working on an SVGA driver - this should totally get around the synchronization issues of the XGA driver, without having to keep retrying to sync the cogs.

Specs:

- 800x600 pixels
- 4 colors from 256 color palette
- each scan line gets its own palette register
- 40MHz dot clock
- 37.88KHz Horizontal Sync frequency
- 60Hz Vertical sync

Theory of operations:

- CTRA will be set to generate a 40MHz dot clock (without using video PLL's)
- Initially six cog driver, to be reduced to five RSN
- at the end of a visible scan line, the sync cog triggers the address cog by writing the scan line number to a global register
- address cog sets up the page register with the start of that scan line, sets a randevouz time for the reader cogs
- reader cogs read 200 bytes (100 bytes each, interleaved) which occupies the bus for 10us, then write out 25 longs each to the hub, taking 5us to do so
- MORPHBUS is therefore occupied just over 10us - call it 11us - in every 26.4us (total scan line time) leaving 15.4us for screen updates per active scan line
- the reader cogs and display cogs will alternate between two scan line buffers maintained in the hub - that is while even line is displayed, odd is being read, and vica-versa

I will keep you guys updated on my progress, and I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/17/2009 3:01 PM (GMT -8)

The good news:

It was easy to reduce the resolution etc to 800x600

The bad news:

I still have the exact same synchronization problem. I am using an adaptation of Chip's multi-cog sync code, the only real change is that I am synchronizing across different pin groups - ie the sync is being generated on P24 and P25, and all of P16-P23 are used for 3R3G2B data.

I posted what I have so far on my downloads page; for simplicity it is possible to not even start 'svga-addr' and 'svga-read' cogs, as the scan line buffers have a test pattern in them.

Update:

Phil sent me a beautifully simple piece of demo code, which when compared to my sources revealed my problem - which is now FIXED!

Expect new 1024x768 4 color and 800x600 4 color drivers late tonight!

Next up: Point, Line and Character plotting!

Post Edited (Bill Henning) : 8/17/2009 11:24:50 PM GMT

Cluso99
We live onboard

Date Joined Apr 2008
Total Posts : 2277

Posted 8/17/2009 7:07 PM (GMT -8)

Nice work Bill, Congratulations

Links to other interesting threads:

Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBladeProp, RamBlade, TwinBlade, SixBlade, website

Single Board Computer: 3 Propeller ICs and a TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)

Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)

Emulators: Micros eg Altair, and Terminals eg VT100 (Index) ZiCog (Z80), MoCog (6809)

Search the Propeller forums (via Google)

My cruising website is: www.bluemagic.biz MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/17/2009 7:09 PM (GMT -8)

Thank you

Cluso99 said...
Nice work Bill, Congratulations

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/17/2009 8:27 PM (GMT -8)

New versions of the XGA and the SVGA 4 color per pixel bitmap drivers have been uploaded to my site.

Writing to the screen is currently painfully slow, but I am working on that - by the weekend, the 800x600 mode should be pretty fast, and capable of at least pixel and character plotting.

The XGA driver will get faster, but it will never be blazingly fast - it uses up too much of the bus bandwidth just to refresh the display.

I realize that the simple demo is kludgy, as is the current simple way of writing to the screen - it will get better this week, and I will post here to keep y'all up to date.

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/18/2009 6:14 PM (GMT -8)

Pixel plotting now works for the 4 color modes

I will post a revised SVGA driver/demo later tonite or tomorrow morning.

Next, I am adding character output

FYI, here is the Spin api so far:

  gpu.config(xfbptr,xres,yres,bpp) ' xmm frame buffer pointer,  x resolution, y resolution, bits per pixel
  gpu.start                                     ' start render cog
  gpu.pen(c)                                  ' set pen color
  gpu.plot(x,y)                               ' plot pen_color at x,y coordinate
  gpu.plotc(x,y,c)                           ' set pen_color, then plot at x,y

GPU cog reads commands from a four long mailbox

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/22/2009 4:47 PM (GMT -8)

New SVGA Driver + Demo!

If you have a Morpheus, run, don’t walk to my Downloads page!

I just uploaded the latest SVGA bitmap driver with new demo’s. This version includes the first release of the GPU server, and implements the following:

* Cls(color) - PASM fast screen clear routine
* Pen(color) - set the drawing color to one of the four colors per pixel
* Plot(x,y) - PASM fast pixel plotting
* Plot(x,y,c) - PASM fast pixel plotting, also specifies color
* Rectangle(x,y,w,h) - draw a rectangle
* Circle(x,y,c) - draw a circle
* FilledRectangle(x,y,w,h) - draw a filled rectangle
* FilledCircle(x,y,w,h) - draw a filled circle

Note that I am working on a PASM version of Line, which will also speed up the FilledRectangle and FilledCircle functions immensely.

More functions coming after the above is completed - namely:

* PutChar(x,y,ch) - output 8×12 character at specified location
* PutStr(x,y,strptr) - output a string at specified location

Questions? Comments? Requests?

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/22/2009 5:11 PM (GMT -8)

Here are two quick pics from the demo - sorry for the quality, it was shot hand-held with my point and shoot camera!

And here is the source for these demos:

PUB LineDemo
  gr.cls(0)
  repeat 1000
    gr.pen(rnd(4))
    gr.line(rnd(800),rnd(600),rnd(800),rnd(600))

PUB RectDemo
  gr.cls(0)
  repeat 500
    gr.pen(rnd(4))
    gr.DrawRect(rnd(800),rnd(600),rnd(100),rnd(100))
    gr.FilledRect(rnd(800),rnd(600),rnd(100),rnd(100))

(This will be the Largos graphics API - it is message based)

Post Edited (Bill Henning) : 8/23/2009 1:19:00 AM GMT

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Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/22/2009 5:12 PM (GMT -8)

And two more pics, and the source code that generates them:

PUB CircDemo
  gr.cls(0)
  repeat 250
    gr.pen(rnd(4))
    gr.DrawCircle(rnd(800),rnd(600),rnd(100))
    gr.FilledCircle(rnd(800),rnd(600),rnd(100))

PUB MoireDemo|c,x,y
  gr.cls(0)
  repeat c from 1 to 3
    gr.pen(c&3)
    repeat x from 0 to 799 step 3
      gr.line(x,0,799-x,599)
    repeat y from 0 to 599 step 3
      gr.line(799,y,0,599-y)

Post Edited (Bill Henning) : 8/23/2009 1:19:58 AM GMT

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heater
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2008
Total Posts : 1834

Posted 8/22/2009 5:28 PM (GMT -8)

Bill, that looks great. I have suddenly developed an overwhelming urge to have a Morpheus of my own now.

For me, the past is not over yet.

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/22/2009 5:29 PM (GMT -8)

Thank you!

I have bare boards, "lite" kits, and "Full" kits (including two DIP 40 propellers) in stock... I also now sell assembled and tested units.

heater said...
Bill, that looks great. I have suddenly developed an overwhelming urge to have a Morpheus of my own now.

Bill Henning
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 962

Posted 8/23/2009 3:34 PM (GMT -8)

While working on a pasm hline routine, I could not resist coding up one more simple demo...

Conway's Game of Life - Rules from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life

Colors:

Black = empty
Blue = newly born cell
Green = two or three neighbours
Red = overcrowded cell

Cell's are drawn as a filled circle, radius of 10 pixels.

I'll upload the code to the downloads section of my site; it requires my SVGA driver.

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Oldbitcollector
Professional Stuntman

Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 3370

Posted 8/24/2009 12:23 PM (GMT -8)

Some of us got boards at UPEW 2009

Any chance you have a kit price for everything I need -minus the Propeller DIPs and the boards?
(No sense taking them from someone else if I have them in the shop.)

This looks AWESOME. Can you do some screen shots with more color than we're seeing now?

OBC

New to the Propeller?

Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.

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