A newbie Propellar Question

MovieMaker

So, I purchased a BOE-Bot with the Ping and other sensors. But, instead of getting a basic stamp, I got a Propellar chip.· I have seen these robots on YouTube and such doing basic object avoidance stuff.· Is there a place I can download this basic program so I can add objects to it and customize it? I have great plans for the little fella. Or, does anyone have the program already written for basic robot stuff. I know about the objects , but can't find a basic operation program. My wife is going to kill me if when I get this thing put together next week and it doesn't do anything. At least obsticle avoidance is a start. Please reply.

Thanks,

MovieMaker

J. A. Streich

"BOE-Bot with the Ping and other sensors. But, instead of getting a basic stamp, I got a Propellar chip."
Did you get just the propeller or did you get a proto- or demo- board for the propeller?
The propeller doesn't work on a Board of Education (the board that came with the BOE-bot).
You will either need to use a Basic Stamp, or get a board for the Propeller.

"Is there a place I can download this basic program"
Propeller runs SPIN code and ASM -- not Basic. You can find plenty of programs in Basic for the Basic Stamp that run BOE with different hardware, and a simple program for object avoidence is even in the Book for the BOE-bot and can be download from the support part of the site. Mike Green also published his code for using the BOE-bot with a Propeller Demo Board (or was it a protoboard), and can be downloaded from the Propeller object site.

First. lets get an idea of what exactly you have, and what you want to do, and we can help figureout what you need, and where to go for code to start learning from. What board(s) do you have (they should be printed on the edge of the PCD), and what chip(s) do you have (should be on the top of the silicone)? What is the ideal "finished" project do at the end of your first stage?

jazzed

There's plenty of Basic stuff for Propeller if that's what you prefer. There's BoeBot version in the object-exchange.
I would urge you to learn Spin at your first opportunity though so you dont have to stay lost in "90 goto 10" loops.

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MovieMaker

Thanks for the reply Mr. S.



··· Right now , I have nothing. Except good soldering skills. I am a computer technician.· My parts are on order and should arrive next week.· I ordered a basic BOE-BOT kit without the pc board. Then I ordered instead of the basic stamp, the propeller board and the ping sensors.· I hope to put this together and make a working robot. I would like to go way beyond just an obsticle avoiding toy.· When I told tech support that I needed it to do 100 or more things at once, they said "you need a propeller because of 8 cores."· Sorry it took so long to reply. I am at work and can only grab a moment here and there.

MovieMaker

where do I get Spin? And, my budget is shot. so I have to work with what I have until christmas or birthday.

MovieMaker

There's BoeBot version in the object-exchange

Are you saying the Boe-bot stamp stuff is code compatible with the propeller and I can just install it and run it like the prop?

jazzed

Spin is free to download and easy to learn.

Mike Green can tell you more about basic stuff.
His "femto" Basic is here: http://obex.parallax.com/objects/28/

Some BoeBot code is here: http://obex.parallax.com/objects/27/
Some PBASIC stuff is here: http://obex.parallax.com/objects/30/

You might consider looking at this thread for more resources:
http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=25&m=281597

Good luck.

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MovieMaker

God Bless You, Jazzed!

MovieMaker

Right Now, I just want to focus on the robot not running into things and I will grow after that.

Mike Green

In the Completed Projects forum around April last year there's a description of a Propeller BoeBot using a Protoboard and the BoeBotBasic that you can download from the Propeller Object Exchange.· This is a simple Basic interpreter that runs completely on·the Propeller and supports two wheel servos, a PING bracket servo, PING))) sensor, an HM-55B compass, and an optional wireless control link.· The compass is optional, the PING servo is optional.· There's a simple manual included in the BotBotBasic download along with a sample program.

You'll also need to download the Propeller Tool, mostly to be able to download BoeBotBasic to your Propeller.· This includes the Spin compiler and Propeller assembler which you don't have to use now.· Eventually you'll want to learn them and there are some tutorials, both in the Propeller manual and in the Propeller Education Kit downloads.· You can use the hardware you're getting to do many of the tutorials.

MovieMaker

Thank You, Mike. This has been MOST Helpful. Can't wait to see this little sucker go.· I plan to take him further if I am able.· I want to add an SD memory card socket and make him learn from his environment, amoung other things. You have made me feel very welcome in this forum. I really apreciate all of you guy's help.

Mike Green

Do add the SD card socket as described in the BoeBotBasic documentation. It's really easy to do and allows you to store Basic programs and data on PC compatible files on the SD card.

MovieMaker

Hey Mike, do you remember a guy by the name of Frank DeCosta or David Heiserman? This is the kind of robot I want to end up with. One that has a memory and can actually think on it's on. No so much what it does, but the process of how it thinks.

Mike Green

I vaguely remember "Frank DeCosta", but not much more than just the name.

To do what you're talking about would require much more computer than anything Parallax sells. You're talking about something like an embedded Linux system running standard LISP or Scheme or other list processing language on a large scale, 64MB minimum RAM, a couple GB of Compact Flash for mass storage.

MovieMaker

Frank had "build your own robot pet". He was using the 8085 cpu. And Heiserman had "build your own self programming robot. I built Heiserman's and bought the RB5X which was the commercial version of it. Also, I built the Hero-1 and the Armdroid. I am not very good at mechanical stuff so the arm gave me a devil a a time stringing it up. It worked with the trash-80. I put robotics aside for many years and I figure the CPUs are much better now and maybe I can accomplish this Artificial Intelligence thing now. I really want the thank you for all of your help. I will probably get my package around TUES of next week because it is on the dock ready for ups to pick it up tonight.

MovieMaker

I am a little concerned to learn that the propeller doesn't have any interrupts. How does this work without interrupts?

jazzed

MovieMaker said...
I am a little concerned to learn that the propeller doesn't have any interrupts. How does this work without interrupts?

Surely there is a FAQ on this by now

The Propeller design doesn't use interrupts because they expect you to use polling via a COG to get events. If you need low latency, you can use the waitpne or waitpeq commands within a COG to monitor the designated interrupt input (kind of a waste of a COG). If you don't need low latency, your interrupt COG could do other things·and periodically run the pin monitor. The other reason to use an interrupt for multi-tasking ticks is not of much interest in the Propeller community, but this can be done too with some special coding ....



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MovieMaker

gotcha!

Mike Green

The Propeller was designed to be deterministic, a useful characteristic when you want to do time dependent operations like "bit-banging" for any purpose from serial asynchronous I/O to delta-sigma analog to digital conversion. Interrupts would make this impossible. By providing multiple processors, one of them can be assigned to each potential event. If the events are slow enough, one processor can poll several different events and deal with them when it suits the other functions of the code. There's a four channel serial I/O driver that works this way. For fast events, the WAITPEQ/WAITPNE instructions provide very fast response to an event, within one or two clock cycles.

SRLM

One thing to consider when using the propeller with the Boe-Bot is mounting. Neither the Propeller Education Kit nor the Demo Board have any mounting holes. If you have the Education kit, it should be fairly easy to stick the breadboard on with glue and a rubberband. For the Demo board, you'll have to make a platform that you can then attach the board to. There is a reason why it's called a BOE-BOT (Board of Education)

Hey Parallax guys: When are you going to come out with a BOP-BOT? A Board of Propeller...

Mike Green

The Protoboard fits perfectly though.

MovieMaker

Thanks for the info!