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Catalina 2.6 - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - The Final Frontier! - Page 4 — Parallax Forums

Catalina 2.6 - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - The Final Frontier!

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Comments

  • BradCBradC Posts: 2,601
    edited 2009-12-06 05:43
    RossH said...
    @All,

    Yes, I'm following these threads with interest. I'm not sure Linux is a good fit for the Prop, but if I had more time, I'd certainly be giving it a go!

    Don't waste your time trying. Really.
    As I've said here on numerous occasions, the Linux kernel requires a number of GCC specific extensions to the compiler. It will _not_ compile without *extensive* modification on any other compiler that does not support those extensions.

    Here's a quick link for a read.
    software.intel.com/file/6390

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-06 06:07
    @Brad,

    Careful - if you make it sound too challenging then someone is bound to do it just to prove you wrong smile.gif

    It wouldn't be any sillier than some of the other crazy things we do in this forum.

    Ross.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2009-12-06 06:57
    Always love a challenge smile.gif Heater, you in for it too??

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    Links to other interesting threads:

    · Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
    · Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
    · Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
    · Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
    · Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
    My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
  • BradCBradC Posts: 2,601
    edited 2009-12-06 07:07
    Cluso99 said...
    Always love a challenge smile.gif Heater, you in for it too??

    See my new thread.

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.
  • heaterheater Posts: 3,370
    edited 2009-12-06 08:32
    No. BradC is right. If you want Linux on anything you have to:
    a) Target GCC at the the thing first.
    b) Or you need to add the GCC extensions required to compile Linux to your compiler.
    c) Or emulate something that GCC targets.

    I'm seriously not up to any of the above.

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    For me, the past is not over yet.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-14 02:58
    @All,

    I have just released Catalina 2.2. A few minor fixes, but the main purpose of this release is to add Morpheus support. This release also adds general support for proxy devices. Proxy devices allow a program running on one CPU to use the devices (mouse, keyboard, screen, SD card) attached to another CPU. Proxy devices are applicable to any multi-CPU system - such as Morpheus or Cluso's TriBladeProp.

    See the top post for more details.

    Ross.
  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2009-12-14 03:54
    Thanks Ross! Can't wait to use it!

    Bill

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    www.mikronauts.com Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
    Morpheusdual Prop SBC w/ 512KB kit $119.95, Mem+2MB memory IO board kit $89.95, both kits $189.95
    Propteus and Proteus for Propeller prototyping 6.250MHz custom Crystals run Propellers at 100MHz
    Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2009-12-14 04:04
    Ross,

    You wrote:

    "Added Morpheus support. XMM is supported on CPU #2. The Mem+ board is also supported, but Morpheus and the Mem+ have to be configured to provide a contiguous block of XMM RAM for Catalina to use."

    The best way to do this is to address Mem+ for the $400000-$5FFFFF address range, and use the on-board 512K with its shadow adress at $380000-$3FFFFF as then it will appear as a contigous 2.5MB block. Due to limited address decoding (which is due to running out of space on the board) the on-board 512K has three shadows, and can be addressed as any of the following four 512K blocks:

    $200000-$27FFFF
    $280000-$2FFFFF
    $300000-$37FFFF
    $380000-$3FFFFF

    Thanks again for your huge effort!

    Bill

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    www.mikronauts.com Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
    Morpheusdual Prop SBC w/ 512KB kit $119.95, Mem+2MB memory IO board kit $89.95, both kits $189.95
    Propteus and Proteus for Propeller prototyping 6.250MHz custom Crystals run Propellers at 100MHz
    Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-14 04:13
    @Bill,

    Yes, that's exactly what I do. This is described in the general configuration file Catalina_Common.spin

    Ross.
  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2009-12-14 05:35
    Well done!

    I have not had a chance to download and read yet smile.gif

    Tomorrow I should have time to do that.
    RossH said...
    @Bill,

    Yes, that's exactly what I do. This is described in the general configuration file Catalina_Common.spin

    Ross.
    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    www.mikronauts.com Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
    Morpheusdual Prop SBC w/ 512KB kit $119.95, Mem+2MB memory IO board kit $89.95, both kits $189.95
    Propteus and Proteus for Propeller prototyping 6.250MHz custom Crystals run Propellers at 100MHz
    Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2009-12-14 07:23
    Hi Ross,

    VERY nice and clear "Getting Started" guide!

    VERY nice "Reference Manual" too!

    Now I will take a peek at the demo's folder.

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    www.mikronauts.com Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
    Morpheusdual Prop SBC w/ 512KB kit $119.95, Mem+2MB memory IO board kit $89.95, both kits $189.95
    Propteus and Proteus for Propeller prototyping 6.250MHz custom Crystals run Propellers at 100MHz
    Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller

    Post Edited (Bill Henning) : 12/14/2009 7:34:26 AM GMT
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-14 13:00
    Hi Bill,

    Thanks. Be sure to read the README.Morpheus file in the target directory - many of the demo programs will not work on Morpheus 'out of the box' - at least not until you understand how to use the proxy drivers. The 'Getting Started' guide goes through this in a fair amount of detail - but nothing beats trying it out for yourself.

    Ross.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-16 11:20
    @All,

    I have just released a small patch for Catalina 2.2 - attached to the first post of this thread - to fix a bug in the SD Card proxy driver. You just need to copy the modified file to your Catalina 'target\input' directory - no need to recompile Catalina.

    Sorry for any inconvenience.

    Also, I have added a batch file to compile the JZIP Infocom game interpreter program for Morpheus - this process is a bit complex as it needs to use proxy drivers to run. The batch file is attached to the JZIP post earlier in this thread.

    Ross.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-16 20:31
    @All,

    Just added a README.Morpheus file to the JZIP post - should have included it with the build batch file.

    Ross.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-17 08:18
    @All,

    Just added a new 'compile.bat' and 'README.Morpheus' file to the Bywater BASIC post earlier in this thread. Now Bywater BASIC can be built and run on Morpheus.

    Ross.
  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2009-12-17 16:57
    Nice smile.gif
    RossH said...
    @All,

    Just added a new "compile.bat" and "README.Morpheus" file to the Bywater BASIC post earlier in this thread. Now Bywater BASIC can be built and run on Morpheus.

    Ross.
    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    www.mikronauts.com Please use mikronauts _at_ gmail _dot_ com to contact me off-forum, my PM is almost totally full
    Morpheusdual Prop SBC w/ 512KB kit $119.95, Mem+2MB memory IO board kit $89.95, both kits $189.95
    Propteus and Proteus for Propeller prototyping 6.250MHz custom Crystals run Propellers at 100MHz
    Las - Large model assembler for the Propeller Largos - a feature full nano operating system for the Propeller
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-18 12:46
    @All,

    Just added a batch file to build the Pascal P4 interpreter for Morphues - see the P4 post earlier in this thread. To build the program for Morpheus, use the command 'build_morpheus.bat' file - see the file 'README.Morpheus' for more details.

    While testing P4 on Morpheus, I found and fixed a problem where the output of the P4 compiler was not being copied to the file name that the P4 interpreter expected to run - so it would never get executed unless you copied the file manually. Also, added a note about having to press CTRL+D to start programs.

    Next stop ... Dumbo BASIC! ... Finally, I get a chance to get back and finish it!

    Ross.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-19 00:43
    @all,

    Just released a new patch for Catalina, attatched to the first post in this thread.

    This patch does not contain any functional changes - it introduces a new version of the standard C library libci that can be used to save RAM space for programs that do not need to do I/O on floating point numbers. This can make a huge difference on Propeller platforms that are limited to the 32kb of internal RAM - for example, on 'hello_world' it saves 8kb! Just copy the appropriate files into your existing Catalina directory - no need to rebuild Catalina, and there are no souce code changes.

    Ross.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-19 10:42
    @All,

    I've just updated the 'Catalina_demos_utilities.zip' package (see the top of this thread) to add the CLOCK plugin to the build scripts for the sst demo program - I hadn't previously realized this game used the clock. The absence of this plugin meant game would hang when certain commands were used. If you don't use this demo program, you don't need to download the updated package as nothing else has changed.

    Apologies for the inconvenience.

    Ross.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-23 08:35
    @All

    Another Catalina Curiosity ...

    This is xvi (a vi text editor clone) for Catalina. It can be used to edit text files on an SD card.

    An executable is included for the Hybrid - it requires the HX512 XMM card (with epmoyer's firmware mod) and an SD card to run. It uses the local keyboard and TV display.

    To make xvi work on Catalina required a trivial new I/O module (catalina.c) and one source code change to the original xvi source.

    To build xvi requires MinGW. There is a make file (called makefile.cat). To use it, go to the src directory and enter:
    make -f makefile.cat
    
    This will re-build xvi for the Hybrid. To build for another platform, edit the makefile and change the SYSDEFS variable.

    Xvi really needs to use a local display - it will probably only work on platforms with a TV or VGA display. It probably won't work properly when using a PC terminal emulator.

    To run xvi, copy the following files to a FAT16 SD card, renaming them to fit into 8.3 filenames. The following is recommended:
    xvi.binary -> XVI.BIN
    help.xvi -> HELP.XVI
    
    The program must be loaded with the Catalina Generic SD card loader (included with Catalina). At present there is no way to enter command line variables, so
    to load a file for editing just start xvi.bin and then say:
    :rfilename.txt
    
    For help, type:
    :help
    
    To close the help window, type:
    :cl
    
    If you are familiar with vi, you can get started right away. If not, you probably should read both a vi tutorial and the xvi documentation.

    Happy editing!

    Ross.

    Edit: With the release of Catalina 2.3, all the Catalina Curiosities have been collected into a single zip file - see the top of this thread for details on where to get Catalina.
  • heaterheater Posts: 3,370
    edited 2009-12-23 09:02
    This is taking retro-computing on the Propeller into a whole new world of pain.

    I love it[noparse]:)[/noparse]

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    For me, the past is not over yet.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-23 09:09
    Hi heater,

    It could have been worse - I could have chosen Emacs instead - 1000+ individual commands to remember, and no discernible logic to any of them freaked.gif

    Ross.
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2009-12-23 14:09
    Many people still use VI or some variant. Just because it's over 40 doesn't make it retro.

    To me, the only big improvements any text editor has made since VI is "block indent" and
    syntax highlighting .... Visual Studio has a reg-ex search/replace now, but it's broken IMHO.
    Symbol.Intellisense is nice, but VI's ctrl-k is just as effective and is only there when I want it.
    My favorite recent VIM improvements are syntax highlighting and directory browsing.

    Generally, I love the fact that my hands do not have to leave the keyboard in VI for productivity.

    EMACS has a big following and I've been forced to use it before, so I just used the GUI version.
    Everyone has their favorite tool set of course. If only Propeller was big enough for a good GUI.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-23 23:23
    Hi jazzed,

    I agree. For me, the best editor of all time is VIM - it adds all kinds of useful things to VI (including block indent and syntax highlighting) without losing VI's essential simplicity.

    Unfortuntately, VIM is just too big to fit on the Prop - but maybe on the Prop II!

    Ross.

    P.S. Emacs is fantastic if you want to write an operating system or solve differential equations inside your text editor - but absolutely useless for simple everyday text editing.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,573
    edited 2009-12-24 03:15
    @All,

    Getting vi working on the Prop has uncovered a few annoying little problems with Catalina - I've just posted yet another patch to fix a bug in the _coginit() function when using the LARGE memory model.

    I also noticed a bug in the compiler itself that means you sometimes get multiply defined symbols when compiling programs which consist of a large number of source files - the workaround for this one is just to keep deleting the objects and recompiling until you get a clean compile. I've fixed this in my version, but (being Christmas eve!) I don't want to spend the next day or so re-testing and re-packaging a new compiler release.

    Expect a release of Catalina early in the new year to tidy up all the outstanding issues. I'll also include new floating point libraries to include the recent bug fixes Cam Thompson has provided for his floating point functions.

    Merry Xmas to all.

    Ross.
  • heaterheater Posts: 3,370
    edited 2009-12-27 14:23
    We will know that the Propeller has grown up when we can have a Vi vs Emacs war between the respective users of those editors on the Prop.

    I don't know if the term "retro" covers old things that are still in use (Wheels come to mind for some reason.). I've been called an "old fart" ever since I turned 40. Perhaps "retro" would be more polite[noparse]:)[/noparse]

    When ever I need to do serious editing I also turn to Vim. I have yet to feel the need to write in Lisp to do my editing tasks[noparse]:)[/noparse]

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    For me, the past is not over yet.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2009-12-27 15:08
    I preferred VEDIT.

    I have the next perfect retro design. IIRC they were the ENIAC and SILIAC computers and were built by the Universities using valves. Each morning after switch-on, a tech would walk the floor looking for valves that did not glow, and replace them. Then they would see if it was going to run.

    Now for the valves, we could use inverted test tubes, each with a red led.

    Emulation will be a walk in the park, but the leds might be another matter - a room full LOL

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    Links to other interesting threads:

    · Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
    · Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
    · Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
    · Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
    · Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
    My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
  • heaterheater Posts: 3,370
    edited 2009-12-27 15:21
    Wow Cluso, a long time ago I pondered the idea of making some fake tubes by casting them from clear resin. Inside would have been some suitable looking metal structures and, not red but, yellow/orange LEDs. These tubes would have worked as well on account of containing some FETS suitable for audio work.

    Test tubes is a much better idea, less work, better cooling and I happen to know a surplus store with boxes of chemistry kit stacked up.

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    For me, the past is not over yet.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2009-12-27 15:43
    Sorry Ross for being OT.

    Perhaps a mix of colors... some purple, some orange with blue strobe effects added, rgb to mix the color... One could go wild LOL

    Better still, some of Kens electroluminescent wire smile.gif This could be the structure as well !

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    Links to other interesting threads:

    · Home of the MultiBladeProps: TriBlade,·RamBlade,·SixBlade, website
    · Single Board Computer:·3 Propeller ICs·and a·TriBladeProp board (ZiCog Z80 Emulator)
    · Prop Tools under Development or Completed (Index)
    · Emulators: CPUs Z80 etc; Micros Altair etc;· Terminals·VT100 etc; (Index) ZiCog (Z80) , MoCog (6809)
    · Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
    My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBladeProp is: www.bluemagic.biz/cluso.htm
  • heaterheater Posts: 3,370
    edited 2009-12-27 16:24
    Hmm... Propellers in tubes, lots of twinky LEDs. Can you squeeze the RamBlade into shape for a Tube based CP/M computer...

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    For me, the past is not over yet.
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