iMac/Parallels/ViewPort questions

[Harley]

I note there are several members on this forum with iMacs. I'm having a problem reading configuration error that doesn't make sense. This showed up recently and Hanno hasn't an iMac to help him research this. My hardware and apps are:

iMac OS 10.6.2, 1 GB 667 Mz DDR2 DRAM
Parallels Desktop 4.0
PropTool 1.06
ViewPort v4.3.3
PASD v 0.4

PropTool doesn't seem to have any problems with edit, compile and program EEPROM. PASD works OK. However, ViewPort somehow cannot read the configuration. I have at times found ViewPort shows in LAS mode what appears to be a valid display. But it 'finds' an older version of the program. Apparently it loads it into RAM, as I display the source's 'last edited date' and it doesn't agree with my last version in EEPROM.

Presently Hanno is away from his lab and cannot help on this matter. It sort of feels like beta testing time. I'm lost without the logical analyzer display to troubleshoot my PASM code timing issues. Has anyone else experienced this problem reading configuration error message?

Even Hanno's examples, like 'Four bit counter', will not run!
Hopefully I've described the issue sufficiently.

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Harley Shanko

Post Edited (Harley) : 4/30/2010 12:26:59 AM GMT

[Adrian Schneider]

I was using a similar setup of
MacBook Pro, 8GB RAM
MacOSX 10.5.8
VMware Fusion 3 with 1 CPU and 3GB RAM dedicated to the guest virtual machine
Windows XP
Prop-Tool was working well so far, but ViewPort did not work reliably. I suppose the USB port could not be served
sufficiently fast for ViewPort. It appeared to me that VP missed some of the data stream which was causing
lag and failure to sync.
I don't know whether this could be remedied by tweaking the virtual machine settings or is just beyond the capacity
of such a setup.

Regards
Adrian

[Sapieha]

Hi.

I'm not Mac expert BUT -

Have You possibility to GIVE Virtual Machine - Exclusive rights to access USB in time You run it.
That can help ViewPort in communication.

Regards

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Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.
For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer.
Don't guess - ask instead.
If you don't ask you won't know.
If your gonna construct something, make it·as simple as·possible yet as versatile as posible.


Sapieha

[BradC]

I'd also give virtualbox a whirl. I used that back in 2006 to run the Parallax tools, and while USB was a bit unstable then (The prop tool had intermittent download errors) it has improved significantly. I still use it from time to time, just not for anything Propeller Related.

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You only ever need two tools in life. If it moves and it shouldn't use Duct Tape. If it does not move and it should use WD40.

[Harley]

Thanks for the responses.

Sapieha said...
Hi.I'm not Mac expert BUT -

Have You possibility to GIVE Virtual Machine - Exclusive rights to access USB in time You run it.
That can help ViewPort in communication.

@Sapieha. I'll check if doing so is possible. I'm not aware about this area if it can be altered.

BradC said...

I'd also give virtualbox a whirl. I used that back in 2006 to run the Parallax tools, and while USB was a bit unstable then (The prop tool had intermittent download errors) it has improved significantly. I still use it from time to time, just not for anything Propeller Related.

@ BradC. I downloaded VirtualBox. First I need to check is I have enough space for installing another virtual machine. And if not, what remains if I Uninstall Parallels to try out VirtualBox app. I surely do NOT want to lose any of my source files. Back up time, before doing that for sure. "If anything can go wrong, it will."

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Harley Shanko

[Mike Green]

I have a 2GHz Core Duo 2 MacBook running the latest MacOS and I use Parallels Desktop with Windows XP. I've run all sorts of Windows software for the Propeller including ViewPort with no problems.

[Harley]

Thanks Mike,

I must have some setting wrong with Parallels or ViewPort then. I'm glad to hear this combination working for you.

I should have also asked, what version numbers is your Parallels and ViewPort? Mine is listed above.

And do you know if there is a way to somehow affect whether the Port ViewPort uses is not being used by the Mac?

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Harley Shanko

Post Edited (Harley) : 5/1/2010 2:41:16 AM GMT

[Botdocter]

I have the same setup and can't get it to work either! And there went my trial time for viewport!

While programming it gives an error that no configs are found, and when trying to program the configs (with propeller tool) it cannot program it for whatever reason it whas

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1 Parallax Propeller Robot Control Board
1 Memsic MX2125 accelerometer/ tilt
1 Parallax Ping))) ultrasonic sensor

a few motors and a whole lot of chaos!

[Mike Green]

My Parallels Desktop version is 5.0.9344.558741

There's an Apple menu item for Devices and within that is a submenu for USB devices. You can enable and disable individual devices. If a USB device is enabled for Parallels use, it isn't available for the Mac.

[BradC]

Botdocter said...
I have the same setup and can't get it to work either! And there went my trial time for viewport!

If you're running it in a VM you should always create a snapshot before you install software that is time bombed. When it expires you roll back the snapshot, create another and re-install.

It's actually good practice to generally create snapshots prior to installing software in a Windows VM, so you can always roll it back if you don't like what you've done and unlike the windows "uninstall" feature, completely remove all traces of it from your system.

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You only ever need two tools in life. If it moves and it shouldn't use Duct Tape. If it does not move and it should use WD40.

[Harley]

I'm wondering if VirtualBox or Apple's Boot Camp can utilize the partition and Windows XP when I installed Parallels. Does anyone have a clue whether this is possible? I don't want to have to remove all those Windows files and apps presently on that partition.

Does anyone know disadvantages to either VirtualBox or Boot Camp? I have looked at the user manual on VirtualBox and have printed the Boot Camp installation/setup guide but haven't had a chance to plow through and understand it all. I seem to recall something about Boot Camp; like not being able to switch between Windows and Mac OSes without rebooting, maybe. Don't know if that has changed. A bit of a nuisance, for sure.

Eventually I will want some pcb layout application also. Already have downloaded Advanced Circuits PCB Artist but have not used it yet; just looked at the Tutorial. I did have Douglas's CAD on my older OS 9 machine which has died again; those power supply boards I've had replaced two or three times and now NO ONE seems to repair them locally any longer. Probably power supply capacitors failed. So need a virtual machine for Mac OS 9 Apps, huh?

Thanks for any info.

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Harley Shanko

[Forrest]

I've run VirtualBox on my Intel Macs and it works fairly well, but I haven't tried any Propeller software. I suspect VirtualBox will have the same timing problems you experienced with Parallels - there will always be some lag when OSX and Windows is trying to share the USB port or any other hardware. Bootcamp would probably run much better with timing sensitive programs - because you're only be running Windows. Bootcamp essentially turns your Mac into a PC, and requires restarting your computer. You will have absolutely no access to OSX or any OSX programs while running Bootcamp. I believe Bootcamp requires it's own partition which you create from within Bootcamp. Once this environment is created, I believe Parallels can access the Bootcamp partiton and run from it.

[Alex41]

I have a Mac Book Pro less than a year old and I did install Bootcamp. It works very well. Yes, you do need to shutdown one operating system and reboot to get into the other. I installed XP in bootcamp. It is a separate partition and the windows drive can be accessed from the Mac OS. I spend 99% of my time in Mac so if I see a file that I would need in XP I just copy it to the desktop or some convenient place and then it is there when go boot into XP.

One bonus for me was that bootcamp came with my Mac and I already had a copy of XP to install so it didn't cost me anything to do it.

Alex

[Harley]

I just ran across CrossOver 9.0. Sounds like it might be another in the virtual machine group. Not free. A special build of Wine.

Has anyone used it? Sounds good...

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Harley Shanko

[BradC]

Harley said...

Has anyone used it?

Yes.

Harley said...

Sounds good...

Not so great. The usability with certain software tends to change between releases though so you might want to give it a whirl.

Combine it with mono and you may get Viewport to run. PASD should be easier to get up and running. The Propeller Tool has a propensity to GPF in its directory tree component under WINE. Getting it to actually communicate with a Propeller is another matter entirely.

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You only ever need two tools in life. If it moves and it shouldn't use Duct Tape. If it does not move and it should use WD40.

[Harley]

Help!!

Naively I installed several virtual machines; Onyx, Crossover and VirtualBox a few days ago, besides the Parallels I'd been using for about 2 years. When I looked into the iMac usage, I found a surprise; which I then looked into the 'PC' side drive memory useage. I didn't realize that partitions would be 'grabbed' at that step; foolishly didn't read the manuals (RTFM, yeah, I know!) and found the following:

Network drive and ID       Free             Total
+---------------------+-------------+-----------+
Onyx              U:           26.5 MB       100 MB
Crossover       V:             3.01 MB     163 MB
VirtualBox       Z:           14.6 MB        84.1 MB
VirtualBox1     X:           14.6 MB        84.1 MB          
VirtualBox2    W:           14.6 MB        84.1 MB
Local Disk       C:           22 GB           31.2 GB

iMac disk                     187.3 GB       249.7 GB

I'm wondering if there is any way to 'delete' or compress the unused partitions without damaging the rest of the space, as I will not be using all of these ultimately? If not the only way would be to reformat the hard disk.

I don't suppose there is anyway to have two virtual machines using the same partition; never running both at the same time? If I try each virtual machine I'll have to install Windows XP, PropTool, ViewPort and PASD on each one it seems. I think I've gotten myself into a fine mess.

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Harley Shanko

[BradC]

I'm having trouble working out what you are doing. OSX does not use drive letters, so I'm perplexed about the list of drive letters there. Unless you are dual booting with bootcamp I don't see why you'd have a separate partition anyway.

Crossover is not a VM and it does not do _anything_ with partitions, it simply uses a directory on your local hard disk to install the windows applications.
In my Virtualbox systems, the "partition" is a large sparse file on the local hard disk meaning it expands only as required. You can't compress it (well you can, but you need to uncompress it again before you use it. "man gzip"), but you can delete it if you feel it's not for you.

Currently you appear to have 187G free from a 250G partition. Why are you worrying?

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You only ever need two tools in life. If it moves and it shouldn't use Duct Tape. If it does not move and it should use WD40.

[Harley]

BradC,

I see I wasn't clear enough. Sorry. I was 'looking in' on the Windows side. Clicking on Start > My Computer, then single-click on Hard Disk or Network drive icons to read details of each. The 'drive letters' were obtained from there.

I thought I had originally given Parallels about half of the HD; System Profiler indicates it is a 250 GB capacity, but I must have only let Parallels/Windows have some 30+ GB.

I'd just prefer to 'delete' any grabbed HD space if I uninstall any apps. I realize 187 GB is a lot, but about 1/3 of the HD is already used.

I noticed when I used to have a PC, and later when I started using Parallels with Windows XP, that there is a lot of times when the HD is being 'used' and I have to wait, sometimes minutes, before I have access to doing something again. Is this something Windows app inherently does? I don't recall the iMac hogging the time away from a user before with just Mac apps. My older Toshiba and even a later ThinkPad would hog the machine at times. Like on power-on; might be minutes before the machine gave me 'my turn' at the mouse or keyboard.

Thanks to all for their comments on this matter.

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Harley Shanko