A lot of Germans here?
Rayman
Posts: 14,162
Maybe I'm just seeing things (because my wife is German), but it seems that there are a lot of Germans here...· At least more than I'd expect from a random sample.· Are Germans somehow attracted to this chip?
Comments
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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Irony and sarcasm rarely cross language and cultural barriers.
Subtleties should be left out of email.
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JMH
This is a lot considering that there is no real German "community", mainly due to the lack of awareness of the Propeller and even of Parallax (and its BS).
I am in contact with around 8 or 10 German "fans" (not counting the member of my classes, who have a different focus (general microcontroller background knowledge; some will devert to AVR, PIC, or ARM7)), and I have the impression that's all, that exists...
I don't know why Parallax is literally unknown in Germany.. the BS is quite popular but connected to the distributor (Wilkes).
Hobby in Germany is AVR (70%), PIC (20%), some exotic things propagated by the ELEKTOR journal: R8C, MSP430,..) The percentage is my personal impression from forums and local internet pages.
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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Post Edited (Paul Baker (Parallax)) : 12/31/2007 1:11:32 AM GMT
There are 3 hardware suppliers (notable "elmicro" - but they sell to company addresses only) with limited range of products. ZEKO in Swizzerland is the only nearby complete outlet, and a very co-operative one!
ELEKTOR has its history, a little bit like BYTE magazine
Most (?) persons interested in microcontrollling weirdly seem to have limited knowledge in electronics, thus they are sometimes not even aware of this or the two other two important magazines ("Funkschau", "ELO").
They start with the internet! ("I am new to all this! Which controller shall I choose? Can you recommend a board to start with that is low cost, powerful, robust, needs little knowledge to start with, and is infinitely expandable?")
They main forums are:
www.roboternetz.de
www.mikrocontroller.net/
Both have a long history, collected an immense knowledge in local Wikis.... and are mainly dedicated to AVR and PIC
I think some "product placement" or even Google advertising there could be more efficient....
The main problem is the language barrier, not so high as in more exotic countries may be, but especially existent among young people.
Twenty years ago the German college system (Gymnasium) forced a decision from the students whether to choose "languages" or "sciences". This is no longer so, but it does not mean that the underlying reality has changed much - the "two cultures" as C.P Snow had called them.... (Well, its after midnight - I always become philosophcal around that time
Post Edited (deSilva) : 12/31/2007 2:03:55 AM GMT
But look brian, then we should count nearly ALL Pensylvaniens as German
By the way deSilva, thanks for the reply in that other thread. I'll do that reading right away and probably get the 4x20 module.
Thats why germans like electronics.
Please do not forget either Bunsen nor Kirchhoff. Or Zeiss, or Heisenberg ... being a chemist I should remember more names
Edit: I found about the Propeller in the german Elektor of Oct or Nov 06.
Freiburg im Breisgau/Germany
Post Edited (Ale) : 12/31/2007 12:04:57 PM GMT
It's not OK to use the abrev. "BS"! Cultural problem?
Regarding Elektor:
It doesn't have a good reputation anymore. And the best electronics magazine has long gone ("elrad").
And "elo", doesn't exist anymore. Haven't seen it since a decade.
An interesting magazine (more directed to software, but also does hardware from time to time) for this audience is c't (<http://www.heise.de/>)
Adding:
A good audience (professional) would be one of those "number magazines" found here: <http://www.elektroniknet.de/home/elektronik/>
Nick
Germany/Bavaria
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Never use force, just go for a bigger hammer!
The DIY Digital-Readout for mills, lathes etc.:
YADRO
Post Edited (Nick Mueller) : 12/31/2007 9:59:59 AM GMT
(and to add to·Geo-Location topic·at least 3 forum members that I know of from Ireland)
Oldbitcollector Started a topic not too long ago allowing users to show their Geographical·location ..
That Thread is here:
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=673738
The Associated Map is here:
pinpointthis.com/?status=updated&username=all&mapid=23
Nick - Interesting that you signed off· 'Germany/Bavaria' - I worked in Munich years back and one of my first lessons was - That the people were Bavarians first and foremost - Germans second !
Hence I thought it would be 'Bavaria/Germany' !! - lol
John Twomey
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'Necessity is the mother of invention'
Post Edited (QuattroRS4) : 12/31/2007 11:49:48 AM GMT
OK, I expand that to Munich/Bavaria/Germany
Nick
"colorfast" (as we say) Munich-er, as my parents were born here too
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Never use force, just go for a bigger hammer!
The DIY Digital-Readout for mills, lathes etc.:
YADRO
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'Necessity is the mother of invention'
i'm German
i grew up in the region "Schwaben"
The "prejudice" about people from this region is, that they always try to safe money (almost like scottish people)
i discovered the propeller in Mai 2007. Bought 1 DIP40 Chip and made experiments on breadboards.
(money-saving protoboard)
i started developing SPIN and ASM-routines for serial IO-expanding using shiftregisters
and i started developing routines for 2-axis-steppermotor controlling using the "bresenham"-algorithm
(X-Y-moving in ANY direction only using addition/subtraction of integervalues)
At the moment my propeller is "sleeping" because i changed the job (from softwaredeveloping in a small engineering company)
to teacher in a school for - hm don't know the word - young people that have graduatet a normal school, now learning
a profession like "industrial mechanics", "car-repairing" etc.
it will be reactivated for a project "walking a math-function". On an screen a graph of mathematical function is shown.
after a countdown the "testperson" tries to walk forward or backward with the same speed like the function y=f(x) changes its Y-Values
an ultrasonic sensor measures the distance of the person to the screen writing a second graph on the screen in a different colour
So this gives a complete different experience of what it means that a math-function is changing its value.
At the moment i look up once a week the object-exchange and the forum
But i'm not working on my projects
best regards
Stefan
Been to Munich a couple of times.. mostly work related issues.
I am originally from the Netherlands ... father lived in Munich ( suburb Unterhaching)
I now live in Australia...southern part in a province/state called Victoria..
There are a good 20-30 active Proppers here in Australia I know off..
StefanL thanks for sharing about that "Bresenham " algo.. I recall seeing something about that years
ago and had totally forgotten about that ..need to google it tomorrow.. better get some sleep now
It is already 2008 here....
cheers Ron Melbourne Australia
try this:
http://www.nondot.org/sabre/graphpro/line3.html
is for x86, but the self modifying code works well, in x86. That is not problem for the prop
Have fun
I've only once been in Australia (near Melbourne, Hunter's Valley). Only three weeks, as a service-man for the German national team for the ISDE (International Six Days Enduro).
And then, I tried to immigrate there, without success, as you can see.
Nick
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Never use force, just go for a bigger hammer!
The DIY Digital-Readout for mills, lathes etc.:
YADRO
My case is a little special: grown up in the (Swiss)German part of Switzerland,
i live now in the Italian speaking part.
I have been teaching electronics and microcontroller for the last 20 years.
In Italy there are a lot of electronic magazines, in Germany and in Switzerland there
are only a few. I think this is also a reason why the Propeller chip is not very known
in the German parts.
I personally have received my Propeller tools from the ELEKTOR magazine
(available in German, English, French and Netherlands!). I have written an article for
a step up converter (as mentioned in an other post).
The Propeller concept is really a big step in the right direction. I have now added a
Propeller board to my development system and i am now designing a Motion Controller
(MoCo) and step by step i am getting to a good point.
There are a few things that are to improve!
Having a huge experience with a lot of MCU and recently specially Freescale HC(S)08 MCUs
i am missing a good debugger and a simulator also!
A chip with some additional features like ADC, DAC, etc. would be nice also.
Saluti Joerg
I'm not German (I'm french Canadian). Just a quick answer to Paul, we have the french version of Elektor here and I read it each month. Last issue has an article on the Hydra and the propeller, I was curious to know more and this is why I'm here. I've buy a demoboard with some spare chips and surely buy the hydra soon.
The main problem is the vast scope of "elctronics" as such. There are little alternatives as Nick mentioned (I think it will be the "Funkschau" only ..) So there HAVE to be small articles of how to compute resistors for an LED and how to make sounds with a NE555, and how to feed-back a 4049 with diodes to form a quasi sine wave...
C'T (which I read regularly in contrast to ELEKTOR) has had it's ups and downs as well It has 1 page (of 200) each fortnight dedicated to "embedded things", and - from time to time - a generally quite demanding selected electronic project.
I think c't and the other magazines have to face some of the following problems:
- the tendency to preassembled and cheep devices "ready to run" with low long term attraction.
They are also build second the use and trow away philosophy.
- the huge number of MCU and the huger number of prototype and evaluation boards with restricted
expandibility at even high prices.
- the need to sell a large number of copies and therefore preferring topics like DVD, printers, etc.
- the lack of education and motivation at school for technical things and how they work. The education has
missed the forcing youngsters at technical topics (including mechanics and electronics) so universities have a
restricted pool of interested and highly students.
All these points (and probably also others) have created a lack of interest in electronics and microcomputing
magazine in Germany and Switzerland. In Italy i see more interested people in this field. But there is also an
other point: THE LANGUAGE! Not everybody in Germany/Switzerland is speaking English (sometimes i have my
doubts about my English)!!! This is also true for the Italian people where i make some moderation for the ieforum.
So i think for focusing on people in other counties there would be the need for bridging! I think expanding the forum
with sections for non English people with some persons acting as bridgers could be a solution.
Concerning the evaluating boards (sometimes i feel like an collector of EVB and other stuff) i have created UMDL
(Universal Microcontroller Development Labor) where the user (mostly me!) is free to choose the MCU module for
a certain application and expanding the design with the needs for the project. So i can reuse the hardware without
big problems. There is a base but also other devices can host the MCU modules like ROB3 my simple robot.
If somebody is interested see www.systech-gmbh.ch -> UMDL.
For bringing other people to the Propeller word could be done with a online magazine in their language. If somebody
is helping me (Parallax included) i can help doing this in German and Italian. Let me know.
Saluti Joerg Schnyder
"Electronics" as a hobby is somthing derived from the pre-TV era when it was possible to surprise your environment with little gadgets you could build yourself and hardly anyone around, and you could not buy it for all money in the world. The James Bond movies addressed this a little bit...
The low cost mass production of today's electronic industry (cell phones, portable computers, mp3 player, personal assistents, living room entertainment center) is difficult to trump...
If you are very skilled you can build something that took infinite time, is somewhat larger and the parts of it had been somewhat more expensive than what can be bought at the next store... But you did it yourself!
Electronic hobby today for many consists of the knowledge of the market: What to buy where, how to use it... That can be difficult enough. Finishing may be: Look at the RC model scene: It's "tuning"!
What they sometimes say: The engineer has become salesman and information broker...
So I notice that the "market" is tight, very tight...