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ImageCraft C, Pre-Production Sales — Parallax Forums

ImageCraft C, Pre-Production Sales

ImageCraftImageCraft Posts: 348
edited 2008-04-05 04:48 in Propeller 1
For any folks who wish to support us and save a little money in the end, you can now purchase "ICCV7 for Propeller" at a 20% off the release price of $249 for $199. See our website for details.

Status: as noted in other threads, the Alpha release has gone well. We are working on the following for a BETA release:
- Compile (and test smile.gif ) our C subset library
- Add .lst file generation (this gives a listing file with interspersed C and asm)
- Add varargs support
- Add more optimizations: inline short branch (done already), eliminating redundant "CMP #0," tune the LMM kernel further etc.
- Add COGNEW support
- Finish documentation

I know a number of you have been waiting for this. My apology for the delay, but I think the final results would be worth it. The Propeller is a special chip. Our new full page partially says

"Parallax's Propeller sets a new standard in innovative design,
ICC Propeller C is the perfect programming tool!"

8 cores, 80Mhz, and soon programmable in C, what's not to love?

*************

As for pricing, while $249 is significantly cheaper than the traditional embedded tools prices ($2000-$3000 is the norm!!), it's still will be a barrier for some of the Propeller target audience. We will continue to look into this issue and probably come up with lower cost versions of the products. Some ideas are:

- personal non-commercial use version
- limited code size version
- bundled kit with hardware

I welcome any comments and suggestions you may have. Please email me at richard @imagecraft.com. Thanks.

// richard

Comments

  • inserviinservi Posts: 113
    edited 2008-04-04 10:31
    Hello Richard,

    I'm so happy to soon have a good C compiler for the Propeller than i will buy one instantly!
    Thank you fo the great job.

    Best regards,
    dro.

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    in medio virtus
  • inserviinservi Posts: 113
    edited 2008-04-04 10:34
    Hello Richard,

    I'm disappointed because when i click the button 'Add Products to card', i get an error message 'Database Error:
    PartNumber not found.' [noparse]:([/noparse]

    dro.

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    in medio virtus

    Post Edited (inservi) : 4/4/2008 10:43:25 AM GMT
  • ImageCraftImageCraft Posts: 348
    edited 2008-04-04 10:48
    Fixed! Dreamweaver was being weird! Be the first customer! smile.gif
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,813
    edited 2008-04-04 11:51
    Will I be able to display info on a VGA monitor from programs compiled in C? I.e., is there any support for the VGA or TV drivers?
  • ImageCraftImageCraft Posts: 348
    edited 2008-04-04 18:30
    Rayman said...
    Will I be able to display info on a VGA monitor from programs compiled in C? I.e., is there any support for the VGA or TV drivers?

    Not yet, but hopefully someone will step up to the plate and contribute one before long.
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,813
    edited 2008-04-04 20:22
    Would LMM code be fast enough to drive VGA or TV?

    Well, I suppose it would still be good with other types of displays (LCD, OLED, etc.)...
  • potatoheadpotatohead Posts: 10,261
    edited 2008-04-04 23:17
    I'll bet it can, so long as bit depths are low. Also, can't we do in-line assembly at this time? If so, the critical pixel loops can be in COG, leaving the rest of the driver as LMM C code.

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    Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!

    Chat in real time with other Propellerheads on IRC #propeller @ freenode.net
  • ImageCraftImageCraft Posts: 348
    edited 2008-04-05 01:02
    Rayman said...
    Would LMM code be fast enough to drive VGA or TV?

    Well, I suppose it would still be good with other types of displays (LCD, OLED, etc.)...

    I don't know what the bandwidth requirements are. You can always be conservative and use 10%-20% of native code speed. Obviously we hope to do better, but that should be good for a lower bound estimate.
  • AribaAriba Posts: 2,690
    edited 2008-04-05 01:18
    A VGA driver must always run in his own Cog. A separate Cog is necessary, because it must run in parallel with an exact Sync timing. LMM is definitly to slow for such things (for the higher definition VGA drivers even 2 cogs are necessary). But it's much easier to start a new native Assembly cog for the driver, then another LMM "Interpreter" anyway.

    The way to do a VGA driver is:
    - port the native Assembly code from Spin to the ICC Assembler syntax (in a *.s file?).
    - make a cognew function to start this new cog (in LMM code).
    - make a Start and Stop function in C according to the Spin methodes.

    I don't have an Alpha release, so I don't know if this all is already possible.

    Andy
  • ImageCraftImageCraft Posts: 348
    edited 2008-04-05 04:48
    Ariba said...
    A VGA driver must always run in his own Cog. A separate Cog is necessary, because it must run in parallel with an exact Sync timing. LMM is definitly to slow for such things (for the higher definition VGA drivers even 2 cogs are necessary). But it's much easier to start a new native Assembly cog for the driver, then another LMM "Interpreter" anyway.

    The way to do a VGA driver is:
    - port the native Assembly code from Spin to the ICC Assembler syntax (in a *.s file?).
    - make a cognew function to start this new cog (in LMM code).
    - make a Start and Stop function in C according to the Spin methodes.

    I don't have an Alpha release, so I don't know if this all is already possible.

    Andy

    Ah Thanks for the data. Yes, this will definitely be possible in the production release. "Nothing to it." (famous last words :-O )
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