As others have stated, there is no particular "Perfect" micro for everything.· I really enjoy working with Atmel micros (Using BASCOM).· I like the variety of micros they offer coupled with the variety of features that they have in each micro.· The Propller fits into the category "It is what it is", meaning that there are not any varieties with different hardware features.· However, its 8 cogs running at a very fast speed is a VERY powerful feature I have come to love.
My current project is rather complex and integrates 2 Atmel micros and 2 Propeller chips.· Each was selected based on its advantages in features over the other.· This results in 18 total processes running at the same time.· This same project was attempted before by me using all individual micros (before learning about the Propller) and I failed bad.· There was just too much time spent communicating between all the physical micros which took away too much time to do the work at hand.· The Propeller allows for farily simple COG-to-COG communications which opened up a world of new opportunities to explore my project further.· The results so far are hands down much better.
Spin and the assembly language of the prop are pretty darn easy to learn and work with too.· All in all, the Propeller is an amazing device, however it is not the end-all-cure-all of micros - it is darn close though!
You were probably looking at the wrong PIC. The simpler ones only have one interrupt which makes things awkward, as the source of the interrupt has to ascertained before it is processed. There are devices that can more easily handle multiple interrupts.s in
Leon
It's not a matter of not thinking it's possible, just not terribly interested in doing it that way. The prop will get it to work without needing to deal in interrupt programming and that suits me just fine. If I turn this into a product to sell then I may have to look more closely at reducing the cost of the MCU but for now getting it working and within the limits of what I already have experience using is most important.
I wanted to first say thanks for taking your time to reply, this really helped! The last question I had was regarding USB support or hosting. In your experiences, what is the simplest/cheapest way to achieve this with external components? Also, what are the chances that parallax will update the propeller chip to support USB like some of the PIC24 chips? I mean USB isn't some strange, non-standard thing anymore. With USB 3,0 coming out and everyone using USB, for nearly everything, it seems like it should be a standard for modern microcontrollers.
There's been some discussion on this by Chip on the general philosophy of the Propeller and Prop II. There will not be any on-chip USB engine like there is on some other microcontrollers. This is true of other types of I/O as well. The idea is that the Prop I and Prop II will do all I/O in software with hardware assistance at the minimum level where necessary. In the case of the Prop I, the cog counters and the video generator are examples of very simple hardware support that make possible all sorts of video generation, high speed serial output, DAC and ADC, frequency synthesis, etc.
USB isn't just supported by the PIC24, it's also available on several of the 18F chips. Some have USB OTG, offering USB host capabilities. The problem with implementing USB properly is that it requires either a lot more performance than the Propeller possesses, or special hardware. The Propeller II shouldn't have any problems doing it in software.
Leon
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Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
I find that combining AVR and ARM with a Propeller gives you a lot of power.
There are some tasks that are performed so well by the propeller that it would be
foolish not to have one (or two) on the board.
It's worth way more than the 8 dollar cost of a prop just to have it for video and precision timing tasks.
C is easy, Spin is easy, PASM is tedious but fast and simple.
Once you learn the basic concepts of programming then all languages become easy....some are more elegant though.
HollyMinkowski said...
I find that combining AVR and ARM with a Propeller gives you a lot of power.
I am using AT90USB162 in combination with a Propeller in my current project. It adds full-speed USB and some additional computational power. Not bad for $3.7 retail price (and some sell them even under $3)
Comments
My current project is rather complex and integrates 2 Atmel micros and 2 Propeller chips.· Each was selected based on its advantages in features over the other.· This results in 18 total processes running at the same time.· This same project was attempted before by me using all individual micros (before learning about the Propller) and I failed bad.· There was just too much time spent communicating between all the physical micros which took away too much time to do the work at hand.· The Propeller allows for farily simple COG-to-COG communications which opened up a world of new opportunities to explore my project further.· The results so far are hands down much better.
Spin and the assembly language of the prop are pretty darn easy to learn and work with too.· All in all, the Propeller is an amazing device, however it is not the end-all-cure-all of micros - it is darn close though!
Chris
It's not a matter of not thinking it's possible, just not terribly interested in doing it that way. The prop will get it to work without needing to deal in interrupt programming and that suits me just fine. If I turn this into a product to sell then I may have to look more closely at reducing the cost of the MCU but for now getting it working and within the limits of what I already have experience using is most important.
Leon
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
There are some tasks that are performed so well by the propeller that it would be
foolish not to have one (or two) on the board.
It's worth way more than the 8 dollar cost of a prop just to have it for video and precision timing tasks.
C is easy, Spin is easy, PASM is tedious but fast and simple.
Once you learn the basic concepts of programming then all languages become easy....some are more elegant though.