KISS OS - A new operating system for the Parallax Propeller
mallred
Posts: 122
We are getting very close to the release of our new operating system for the Parallax Propeller, the KISS OS.· It will require our 2MB memory expansion board, but·4MB would be better·(sorry, we couldn't stuff an OS into 32k).·
Voice recognition with the object of eliminating the keyboard will not be implemented in this first version, but will be forthcoming.
(Ok flamers get ready, I'm going to talk business now.)
We will be offering our first rendition of the KISS OS for $49.95 with free lifetime updates, including voice recognition and/or any other improvements in the future.
We are looking at an August timeframe for release.·
We will post again when it is offered for online download.
Thanks for all your support.· Several of you have purchased our memory boards, including one sold today, so you will be ready when this comes out.· We invite the rest of you who are interested in our approach to machine intelligence to get your systems ready to roll.· This should be a lot of fun!
Best of luck,
Mark Allred
Machine Intelligence Technologies
http://www.machineinteltech.com
Voice recognition with the object of eliminating the keyboard will not be implemented in this first version, but will be forthcoming.
(Ok flamers get ready, I'm going to talk business now.)
We will be offering our first rendition of the KISS OS for $49.95 with free lifetime updates, including voice recognition and/or any other improvements in the future.
We are looking at an August timeframe for release.·
We will post again when it is offered for online download.
Thanks for all your support.· Several of you have purchased our memory boards, including one sold today, so you will be ready when this comes out.· We invite the rest of you who are interested in our approach to machine intelligence to get your systems ready to roll.· This should be a lot of fun!
Best of luck,
Mark Allred
Machine Intelligence Technologies
http://www.machineinteltech.com
Comments
Best Wishes,
Bill
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www.mikronauts.com - my site 6.250MHz custom Crystals for running Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
Morpheus & Mem+ Advanced dual Propeller SBC with XMM and 256 Color VGA
Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
How many cogs does the OS use up?
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www.fd.com.my
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We have been in the habbit of posting videos as a means of documentation lately. We will post a series of videos to Dr. Jim's Design Corner once we get closer to the release date. There will also be a feature set listed online as well as we approach release.
And to William, the KISS OS requires 4 cogs, leaving 4 for development on one board, however, we have developed a way, using the serial mouse connector, to link multiple Propeller Proto USB Boards together, allowing for any number of free cogs needed for development.
Great questions! Thanks!
Mark Allred
Machine Intelligence Technologies
No flame here.
Best of Luck,
Jim
Looking forward to a demo (video perhaps) of what KISS OS does.
And maybe at some point your crew can contribute to this forum in a manner·that doesn't include selling something.
Rick
PS-A presentation at the EXPO in August would be a great place to show your stuff.
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Toys are microcontroled.
Robots are microcontroled.
I am microcontroled.
If it's not Parallax then don't even bother. :-)
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>Signing OFF
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What is the KISS OS?
All I know about it is:
1) It's an operating system.
2) It will not initially have voice recognition.
3) It needs 2MB of RAM
4) It will cost me $49.95.
Thing is I already have an operating system for the Prop. It also does not have voice recognition. It runs in 16Kbytes of RAM if need be. It cost me nothing. It's called CP/M. So I'd really like to know what is KISS and why should I want it. Just a hint would do for starters.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I also wrote a response to this announcement, making almost exactly the points you made - but then decided not to post it. Obviously mallred can't be quite so ignorant of the various existing Prop developments as he appears to be, so I assume his post is instead intended to be deliberately provocative. In the end I decided to just to ignore the whole thing until mallred decides to honour the collective intelligence of these forums by posting some technical detail.
Ross.
P.S. You have to wonder about someone whose business model seems to be based around antagonizing and infuriating such a large part of their potential customer base. I guess this could be a workable strategy - but surely offering a reasonable product at a reasonable price is a whole lot easier?
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Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina
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http://www.propgfx.co.uk/forum/·home of the PropGFX Lite
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Sounds great! Mark. I picked up a few extra points from the Dr. Jim design videos on the Machine Intelligence Technologies web site. I look forward to more of the design videos being published.
Bob
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Aka: CosmicBob
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Toys are microcontroled.
Robots are microcontroled.
I am microcontroled.
If it's not Parallax then don't even bother. :-)
·
Mini-Din/PS2 connectors are for sale! 5 for $1! PM me if you wish to make an order.
Cheap·shipping unless specified!··········150 left!!··
An OS for the Propeller is like drilling a hole into the chip and installing a lubrication nibble for the HUB.
Nick
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Never use force, just go for a bigger hammer!
The DIY Digital-Readout for mills, lathes etc.:
YADRO
The purpose of an OS is to act as an interface between the hardware and the user. It is responsible for the management of system resources for one.
As an example, in our completed android, we will have at least 4 Prop Proto USB boards with multiple daughter boards for extra memory. The OS allows us to read/write to say a thumb drive off of Proto board 3 or transfer that data to ERAM on Proto board 2 or copy it to memory board 3 on Proto board 4.
What does DOS do? It is a command line interface between a computer and a user. It allows us to look at the files on the hard drive, to copy files, to delete files, to transfer files and write to a floppy disk all without having to know the ins and outs of each chip at the machine language level to achieve the same purpose.
It allows for a much more complex system, which is what we need for our machine intelligence software. Remember, when we started this project, we looked for a robotics platform out there that was capable of handling our routines. None was available. This is why we chose to build one from scratch. Along the way, we built the KISS Debugger which has been well received, the SRAM memory expansion daughter boards, and a software solution to control 16 servos off the I/O pins of the propeller chip.
We have offered each of these separately because others may have uses for them other than this project. But the development has occured because of the project.
The OS is not stand alone, it will require at least one memory expansion board to run, and it will take almost the entire 2MB just to load and run it, that's why we say 4MB is probably a better solution. But we have tried very hard to make the components of our overall project available for those not interested in the project, but who may make use of its various parts.
We have done all this since January 2009. We have been very busy, as you might imagine.
We now have a number of videos on our blog site Dr. Jim's Design Corner that may be of use. In one he talks about a portion of the design of the OS if you want to look at that. I believe it is Dr. Jim's video #6.
Thanks again for your interest. I hope this explanation has been helpful.
Mark
>An OS for the Propeller is like drilling a hole into the chip and installing a lubrication nibble for the HUB.
>Nick
Ah, Nick, that's not an "OS" - that would be an "OilS" ;-P
I know you ment no harm, but Microcontrolled is 12-14 years old. Least we forget that we all once didn't know what an "OS" is [noparse];)[/noparse]
@Microcontrolled: to build on what Mallred says, think of it like a layer cake. The hardware is one layer, the OS is stacked on it, then the applications stack on top of the OS. So the purpose of a Prop OS would be similar to a regular PC's OS (Windows, Linux, DOS, etc.). As Mallred says, it manages resources. Consider how much work you have to do to get serial data in and out of an MC. In a Windows PC, you can write a program that just points to read and write buffers and picks a COM port. You then tell (call) the OS and tell it "I'd like to use COM Port 3 and here's my data buckets to read and write with." The the OS does all the nitty gritty. Same is true for reading and writing to the disk, etc.
Well, you probably have heard about all that, so what makes this so special or different for the Prop? You know the prop is pretty powerful, but it has its limitations. The CPU in your PC is much bigger, faster, and has tons more instructions and on-chip memory (buffers/registers) - these are "General Processors" and they are also supported by special chips to access the PC data and address busses. And the PC has a lot of memory compaired to a PROP. An OS, to provide features (functions) that make life easier for an Application takes up a lot of memory. That's why people here are working so hard on trying to do things with expanding the Props memory connections - and in trying to make workable "OSes" for the Prop. But it's kind of like trying to put a Giant's foot into a Dwarf's shoe. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
cheers
-Howard
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Then you misunderstood me.
It's OK when people write OSes for the Propeller. But I'll never be a customer of them ... OK, that won't hurt them anyhow.
The Prop is a very special µC. If you use it like any other CPU (be it µ or not), you're doing something wrong. It has 8 powerful cores, and they have to work parallel to honor the design. Parallel, I wrote. That doesn't mean that one is doing IO sometimes, and the other is interpreting some language. And maybe the third one tries to keep pace with swapping in and out memory for the OS that simply doesn't fit.
It is a big achievement to get an OS running in a too small µC. OTOH, you could also pick a different platform that does the job much easier, faster and better.
Of course, eveyone is free to use the Propeller in his way. Be it "stupid", be it because he has some chips as leftovers, be it because he's familiar with it. But my *personal* understanding ends when someone writes an OS for a 32K µC that needs 2MB and is trying to make money out of it.
We always called that "design decision" if something was made wrong from the start and that design was never thrown over board.
"Your saw is dull, you should sharpen it!" "Have no time, gotta saw!".
Anyhow, I wish him success! And the Prop is a great processor!
Nick
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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) : 7/12/2009 8:43:08 PM GMT
This is a general question about prop OS'es. What is the purpose? ... I have never understood prop OS thing.
Nor have I understood why anyone wants a Prop OS, it just doesn't seem add anything. IMO the Prop was never meant to be a microprocessor like 6809 running FLEX or even a 68000 box but a very nifty and cool microcontroller that a person could start programming right out of the box without the need of ingesting a 1000 page data book.
For the Prop OS, the advantage of packaging these functions this way is that you can write your programs using a standard, ready-made interface and most of the I/O and utility functions you need are already included. In the case of the Prop OS, the I/O drivers can also be loaded into their cogs and left there so their assembly code and initialization code don't have to stay in hub memory and you can use that memory for something else when you're writing your programs (and the utilities too). mallred and others who have done similar things have packaged a different set of functions into the OS. mallred in particular is interested in things that will support their AI project and those functions may be somewhat different from those needed by someone who wants to produce an automobile dashboard control system or a platform for multiple processor emulators (like a Z80 and 6809) or a datalogger (and data analysis program) for a sounding rocket.
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Toys are microcontroled.
Robots are microcontroled.
I am microcontroled.
If it's not Parallax then don't even bother. :-)
·
Mini-Din/PS2 connectors are for sale! 5 for $1! PM me if you wish to make an order.
Cheap·shipping unless specified!··········150 left!!··
There must be something that eats 2Mbytes.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I agre with heater ... BUT have more to said !
In my opinion them anonced any OS/Program that not exist YET.
1. No features specified.
2. Anouncing commes directly after Bill Hennings anonce of "Morfeus/Largos" with similar memory conection building.
Mike Green.
At last one very fine explanation of USE programs to Propeller that I will PAY else NOT PAY for them.
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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
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Release the hounds!
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He will be running virtual memory, just like on the PC.
MRAM is the onboard Propeller RAM, the fastest running at up to about 10 MB block transfers. ERAM is our Expanded RAM from 2MB to 16MB capacity per Proto board using daisy-chained daughter boards, running at up to 3 MB in block transfer mode, and then VRAM, one or more thumb drives used as permanent memory, all running very slow, in a serial fashion, and speed dependent upon the thumb drive manufacturer, but the slowest of the three types of memory.
Our OS supports 32-bit virtual addressing in MRAM, ERAM, and VRAM.
The OS supports abstract addressing, a proprietary set of functions for synaptic storage and retrieval, i.e. for learning and for accessing previously learned and stored synaptic information which equates to previously stored intelligence.
The OS supports file manipulation. Users may also write their own functions. We have a large number of utility routines, including many of the debug functions.
There really is no common ground for comparison between the KISS OS and other CPM-like OSes. The KISS OS is unique among operating systems and cannot truly be compared against any micro controller or microprocessor based OS that we are aware of. Instead, it is more like a mainframe architecture, and should be thought of in those terms, a virtual memory machine.
It will be available for purchase soon, through a download from our website. The pricing will be $49.95 for a lifetime subscription initially.
Stay tuned. Machine intelligence software to follow...
Mark Allred
Dr. Jim
I appreciate your posting some technical detail at last. It actually sounds quite interesting. There is nothing particularly unique about virtual memory operating systems on microprocessors these days, but I agree that getting one running on the Propeller is quite an achievement. Lots of people in these forums (including me) are still trying to figure out how to do this in a way that would have any advantages over simply using a bigger, faster multi-cored processor that already has this feature built-in to the hardware.
Will your OS run on anything except your own hardware? Will you be offering a trial license? Also, what languages are provided for use with your OS?
Ross.
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Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina
What precisely is "MRAM" - are you referring to the 32KB of hub memory right on the propeller chip? (It sounds like it as you say "onboard Propeller RAM")
Your OS must require some sort of virtual machine, ie a byte code interpreter of some kind, to have 32 bit virtual addressing, correct?
The abstract addressing sounds quite interesting - it sounds like some kind of content addressable scheme, possibly some kind of hashing - am I right?
To access "thumb driver" are you using the FTDI usb host to SPI converter chips?
What computer language do users write the extensions in? and what languages does KISS OS support for users to write programs in?
Thanks,
Bill
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www.mikronauts.com - my site 6.250MHz custom Crystals for running Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
Morpheus & Mem+ Advanced dual Propeller SBC with XMM and 256 Color VGA
Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
I looked at VM for LMM early on, and decided that the performance hit was too large, especially with the relatively low speed of available I/O devices - swapping to SD would be painful, not to mention placing a lot of wear and tear on those poor flash chips.
Bill
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www.mikronauts.com - my site 6.250MHz custom Crystals for running Propellers at 100MHz
Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
Morpheus & Mem+ Advanced dual Propeller SBC with XMM and 256 Color VGA
Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
Yes, I came to a similar conclusion about VM on the Prop - but t sounds like maybe the KISS OS doesn't really mean this type of "virtual memory". From the description of the 32 bit addressing for MRAM/ERAM/VRAM, it sounds like the VRAM is not used as a traditional virtual memory backing store, but instead as an extension of a single common "abstract" 32 bit address across all storage. But then again maybe not, since 32 bits is not enough to address the capacity of even a single SD Card - so how would you access it?
Also (as you point out) to use this type of storage scheme effectively you need support for it built into the language - otherwise it's just too difficult to keep track of things. So the languages supported by KISS OS becomes absolutely vital.
Perhaps mallred will enlighten us?
Ross.
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Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina