How many active Propeller ZiCOG CP/M users are out there?
jazzed
Posts: 11,803
I just have to know since it comes up so often. There are currently 4 active and 3 hard core participants on the TriBlade Prop and related threads. How many people actually have CP/M running on a Propeller right now or have an active Propeller CP/M project going as a daily user or programmer?
Speak up and settle this question so we can accept or ignore the truth or the prop-aganda (pun intended).
Speak up and settle this question so we can accept or ignore the truth or the prop-aganda (pun intended).
Comments
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Style and grace : Nil point
I run it litle (Have Clusos TriBlade) BUT now I'm very busy with Custom Layouts to Propeller based PCB's
Regards
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
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
I've just been waiting for the dust to settle and 1.0 release to jump back in.
OBc
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
New to the Propeller?
Visit the: The Propeller Pages @ Warranty Void.
For me it isn't CP/M per se, but rather the ease with which complex tasks can be achieved. I'm working towards things like taking high res photos using a serial camera, storing and buffering them, chopping them up into pieces and sending them via wireless using a simplfied bittorrent protocol to other boards and one of those boards will act as an interface to a serial ethernet port and hence the internet. Plus use the network to control things, turn things on and off etc. All using boards powered by batteries or solar. Much of this is already working on real Z80 boards, but the propeller uses a fraction of the power and has much more storage. Stay tuned for more exiting developments!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
www.smarthome.viviti.com/build
I think there will be a lot more people who will get involved when (and if) this SMT board happens.
BTW
Clusso's SMT board has many possiblities including Catalinaand others. A Prop board with XMM should have been done by Parallax IMO, but I have said that before.
Cheers
Ron
I am currently waiting for the first batch of RamBlade pcbs to be delivered (the SMT version). This will pave the way for a lot of others to join the group.
BTW: This is not just for a z80 emularion and CPM. It is for 512KB external SRAM, microSD (to 2GB for now) and a prop. All sorts of sytems can run on this, not just CPM. For example, Catalina C programs, etc. A 2 wire serial interface is all that is required, so add a terminal via another prop or a pc.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
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
We all know the advantage is getting CPM running on the
demo board, Hydra board, and Proto board, to gain a
additional languages.
humanoido
Yes, I agree. The aim is to have a board that can do all the useful things a computer can do. Several output devices. Several input devices. Some serial ports. Mass storage. Lots of memory. This is a photo of a board I'm using - VGA/keyboard/SD card/LCD driver/serial ports x2/onboard 5V and 3V switching power supplies. I'm sure it would be possible to use this for other things.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
www.smarthome.viviti.com/build
Post Edited (Dr_Acula) : 11/29/2009 12:35:33 PM GMT
[*] Active users who have responded: 3
[*] Users in the wings for some reason: 3
Better call in the N8VEM forum enthusiast brigade [noparse]:)[/noparse]
DR A, it would be nice if your screen shot was as colorful as your PCB picture. As it is now I'm feeling some Wang terminal nostalgia [noparse]:)[/noparse]
Maybe if I owned an Osborne I would be more excited ... and have a better physique, but of course my eyes would be even worse by now.
My goal is to build one PCB with 8085HA CPU with 512KBytes RAM for my experiments on CPM2-CPM3 (posiblity to RUN all my old programs on it)
Some of them was writen specificaly for INTELS version that had some special undocumented instructions that I used.
That give them no posiblity to run on other thpe of CPU
Regards
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
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
Re the vga being a bit dull in green on black, maybe I might tweak that to make it white on blue? Down the track I'd like to look at graphics but I'm not 100% sure how the propeller handles mixed graphics and text. As a general question, can I use an 80x40 text object, then draw a colored circle in the middle of the screen at the same time?
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
www.smarthome.viviti.com/build
Post Edited (Dr_Acula) : 11/29/2009 10:41:54 PM GMT
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
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
If you look at some of the Propeller native spin/pasm objects, you should derive very clear ideas about how to get more graphic.
At some point though you will run into the same limits others have found with the Propeller and retro platforms.
Ok, here's the score so far:
[*] Active users who have responded: 5
[*] Users in the wings for some reason: 3
[*] Non-users who are interested, but don't have time: 1
Given Yoda's description, it's obvious to me he is an active user not "in the wings".
Any more from the N8VEM forum? Still waiting for heater [noparse]:)[/noparse]
This has been fun so far.
A true engineer would make a glass that was the right size ( or is that a hardware problem?). +10% for safety.
The way the PropII discusions are headed the dev sys is going to be worthy of a HD. I wonder if the CP/M is a yell for the past, or the truth that it is the backstep to OUR control. DRM is very shady.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Style and grace : Nil point
I think there are a few Hydra guys who like me, have played with a driver for Zicog using HX512k. I know of 4 Hydra users including me, I know of no one that has got Zicog going under using the HX512K yet. You could count the number of posts by different users to the two threads. That would be a better indication of the interest in Zicog.
The hardware has been a big turn off to date.
regards
Ron
I want to be fair because I am curious to know the truth. Still, if a person does not post about their use or otherwise here even if it was originally their idea to write Zicog, I will not count it.
I'm sorry the HX512K has not worked yet, but I'm not surprised because of the number of instructions required to make it function as an SRAM, the way the bytes are burst, and the absolutely silly location of the bus on the Hydra. It was a huge waste of money for me too [noparse]:)[/noparse]
As I have said, I built the TriBlade to allow access to external RAM and SD card fast. That is why I used a seperate prop to handle I/O. It was not built for ZiCog or anything in particular at the time. I just recognised that we needed access to external RAM fast. However, my TriBlade was an expensive pcb. I confused some people with the extra features on the pcb.
The coming RamBlade (my pcbs are due to be shipped to me anytime) simplifies the design and has faster access. But, it's basic function is a self-contained prop with ram, uSD and eeprom and 2 wire serial I/O to another prop - any prop board with 2 pins (or any other processor for that matter) to be used for the I/O such as a terminal, or interface to anything external. This is quite cheap, small and simple to use, so we may soon see some real uses for the external ram and uSD, besides CPM. So it's a 1.9"x1.2" module to plug into an existing Prop ProtoBoard, DemoBoard, SpinStudio Board, or any other board the user already has.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
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
Put me down as an "interested bystander" - maybe a 0.25 (since I can't honestly say I'd ever do more with it even if I had time).
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Catalina - a FREE C compiler for the Propeller - see Catalina
I agree and fully understand this. All of us who wanted more had memory designs. My first was early summer 2008.
I'm not sure why you limit yourself to 512KB though when as high as 8MB with much faster data sharing is within range.
Your RamBlade is interesting for average use meaning you can serve the most possible users with one PCB and the users on the outside deviations of the bell curve will not care, but I'm not convinced the general user data rate is as fast as it could be because of the data bus placement and the memory access speed. But since you only care about byte at a time access which is a key 8 bit CPU emulation consideration, memory access speed is not that important.
put me in with 'interested bystanders with no time' ...
Cluso's got a wonderful set up that I hope to work with at some point.
thanks
- H
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Actually I think CP/M may be one of the most boring operating systems ever! No color, usually a green screen, virtually no games etc.But my CP/M computer got me through medical school and I wrote hundreds of essays on that computer when most of my colleagues were writing by hand (now you know why doctors all have bad handwriting). It was a workhorse and much less fun than the brightly colored (and more powerful) games machines many of my friends had.
I see CP/M as a stepping stone to other things. Right now we are emulating computers from the mid 1970s but I think there is potential to emulate more recent machines. What the zicog and triblade show is that you can emulate an emulation (The Zicog is actually emulating the Altair SIMH which is an emulation written for a PC). There are are other emulations out there and they are a lot more fun too. Take this fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/ and the hardware/software links. Pacman. Space Invaders. Gameboy (Z80). There are both Z80 and 6502 emulators there, and the banking of the memory looks very familiar. Maybe we need some fun games in color?
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
www.smarthome.viviti.com/build
Post Edited (Dr_Acula) : 11/30/2009 1:52:05 AM GMT
As far as I can tell ZiCog only actually has one user. Dr_Acula. He has been writing Z80 and/or BASIC code and developing an IDE to help with that all with an actual use in mind.
I took along while to respond to this thread because it seemed like such an odd question and I wanted to just see what response came up. You see it never occurred to me that ZiCog and especially ZiCog running CP/M would actually have a use. It's like asking if someone has a use for that crossword puzzle they've just completed. Or Sudoku or whatever. The use is in the solving and doing. Once it's done that's it. Move on to the next puzzle.
Having said that I would like to eventually dedicate a board with one or other of the Prop+RAM solutions permanently to ZiCog and CP/M with it's own little screen and keyboard. Hopefully with an Altair like front panel of blinken lights and switches. It would just sit on the shelf and blink and occasionally run WordStar when visitors come and ask "what on earth is that?" for years to come.
A few comments on the comments here:
I think Dr_A's photo of a green screen running CP/ is just beautiful as it is.
Toby, you do realize that hard disks will be obsolete by the time Prop II comes out.
I looked at the Hydra a long time ago, before we had any other Prop+RAM boards around, it was clearly going to be slower and a pain to fit the code in. The expense did not seem worth it for the 64K of RAM usable for random access.
CP/M boring, no games, no colour. Not so. Take a look at this http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/ or just the attached pic. There were hundreds of games for the Amstrad CP/M computers. There have been new many games released for it THIS year.
Not to mention all those Japanese MSX standard computers.
I'm not sure how hard it might be to recreate the Amstrads graphics in the Prop but I reckon the Prop II will handle it easily.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
For me, the past is not over yet.
Ok, Amstrad CPC. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_CPC Z80 4Mhz with 64 to 128 to ? 576kb. We can do that. Graphics will be the challenge, but then graphics probably is the next thing to tackle anyway.
Hmm - I need to get a board to you. I'd love to see some real games running on a prop under a Z80 emulation.
Addit: I see Kye has added a 4 color vga driver to the obex just a week ago that runs on one cog. 4 color would be a start. (though from memory I think the text driver uses two cogs, so that gives us some flexibility). Even 4 grayscale could do a lot. I found some drivers from jazzed as well - they could come in handy. I also am going to solder up a board soon and try to run TV instead of VGA. That might give some more flexibility, eg smaller screen, accept lower resolution than vga but it probably isn't so critical for games cf text.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
www.smarthome.viviti.com/build
Post Edited (Dr_Acula) : 11/30/2009 4:23:34 AM GMT
Then I bet those games used a lot of Z80 block operations which are dog slow on ZiCog just now.
However we should be able to do some non game graphics for programs that used the Graphics System eXtension (GSX). An API for graphics on CP/M. www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Cpm/gsx.html. Just intercept the calls to it like we do for I/O now and then get some Prop graphics driver to do the work.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
For me, the past is not over yet.
Score update:
A little more than I thought, but not too much. Enjoy your interpretation of it. If nothing else, this thread can be considered free market research.
Cheers.
I picked up my pPropQL again, I want it finished and/or displaying something before christmas. Let's see!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Visit some of my articles at Propeller Wiki:
MATH on the propeller propeller.wikispaces.com/MATH
pPropQL: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL
pPropQL020: propeller.wikispaces.com/pPropQL020
OMU for the pPropQL/020 propeller.wikispaces.com/OMU
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
www.smarthome.viviti.com/build