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a fertile escapade ?? — Parallax Forums

a fertile escapade ??

ErNaErNa Posts: 1,752
edited 2008-05-24 18:25 in Propeller 1
Not to be untrue and to bring you to cry a river over me: I just have to say: we are not alone and why not to use others strength?
The propeller need a flash memory, when in a stand-alone application. Why not use the flash of another microcontroller, like atmel? We could make the firmware to use this controller as a memory which downloads the software and there also could be a protocol to use the other peripheral elements. This would make it easier to show the people of the other worlds (beside the propeller world) what the advantage of immigration is.

Comments

  • hippyhippy Posts: 1,981
    edited 2008-05-22 15:36
    No reason not to go that route at all. If the other micro can be configured as an I2C Slave it can be easily used in place of an I2C Eeprom and bring with it extra I/O etc.
  • ErNaErNa Posts: 1,752
    edited 2008-05-22 20:16
    My intention was just to replace the flash prom. So the solution must be cheaper than the propeller itself. The "problem" is to have the right infrastructure to program the chips and to select the chip, that will find the highest acceptance.
  • AribaAriba Posts: 2,690
    edited 2008-05-22 20:33
    I also reflected on such a solution. I tried to find a little AVR or PIC wit 8 or 14 pins, but they all have not enough Flash memory.
    One solution for me will be to only store a little Booter code in an AVR, and this Bootcode then starts a specified File from SD card.

    Andy
  • bambinobambino Posts: 789
    edited 2008-05-23 00:06
    I too poundered this, mainly in an attempt to come up with a good encryption process for the EEPROM, but as Ariba said in a small pin count the memory on board the chip is too small. If I could afford a breakout board for some of the 80 plus pin chips (microchip dsp's) then a boot + periphials could be added.
    I've concluded it would have no real advantage where encryption is concerned, but the I/O expasion would be incredable!

    I did make a ADC slave out of a 16 bit dsPic. It really was nice, analog in and PWM out to the propeller.
    I've since misplaced the code and lost interest, but the idea of using other chips as slaves to the propeller still intriges me!
  • ErNaErNa Posts: 1,752
    edited 2008-05-23 08:56
    I just took a look around and found the Z8F6421, about 10€. This chip is also available in dip package. Before I found the propeller I did a little project with the Z8encore, so I have a development system and can program the chip. But if we find a solution to distribute task, it makes sense to define a protocol, tranparent to to actually used hardware. Any ideas?
  • yerpa58yerpa58 Posts: 25
    edited 2008-05-23 22:53
    Like Hippy said, "I2C Slave".
  • hippyhippy Posts: 1,981
    edited 2008-05-24 00:49
    ErNa said...
    I just took a look around and found the Z8F6421, about 10€

    That's about $16 USD, more than the cost of another Propeller plus two I2C Eeproms so where does the advantage come ? Apart from benefits of extra I/O, on-chip ADC and potential use for encryption there has to be some reason to choose another micro over what is a cheap commodity I2C Eeprom which works with no extra effort needed.

    I can understand using cheap micros as Propeller peripherals and even the Propeller as a peripheral for other micros but I don't really understand what your particular vision is.
  • ErNaErNa Posts: 1,752
    edited 2008-05-24 18:25
    As I said, I just looked around. Now I came to Silicon labs and found the C8051F930-GQ for about 6$ in single quantity. Or C8051F346-GQ , 8$60. The last www.silabs.com/public/documents/tpub_doc/dshort/Microcontrollers/USB/en/C8051F346_Short.pdf has a USB-interface and could shurely be used to realise a download adapter. However, there is need for a protocol mechanism to distribute tasks and it would be nice to collect some ideas.
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