The other company will probably be producing their second-generation chips in a year or so, with four 800 MHz cores and up to 32 threads delivering 3200 MIPS.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
@heater: "poor" because it is cheaper and easier It's an expression used for many things.
@all: As for other chips being able to replace the SX... There are many, depending on your specifications. I can think of 1 that will not cost anything for most people - use a PC!!! You already have one, it can be faster than most micro chips, it has an excellent screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. Just run an emulation. But that is not the point is it!
The discussion here is whether a 2 cog propeller (or another variation or the existing prop) could be the next step for the SX people. Some have already taken the plunge to the Prop, but we are looking at easier/cheaper ways for this. There ARE other solutions, but that is not the point here. Of course then follows the question "Is it viable for Parallax?".
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Leon said...
four 800 MHz cores and up to 32 threads delivering 3200 MIPS
They use a 4 core version here that runs at 1600mips.
But it's a 30 dollar BGA chip that is not easy or fun to play
with. It uses a version of C called XC...looks pretty much the
same as normal C but with some add ons for multiple
cores. I don't write code for this or for the multi core Cell processors
that are also used in some equipment. I'm stuck programming
for single core Harvard chips mostly. The new Prop2 should be
better than the 4 core 1600mips chip...and cost less.
The prop can't compete with cheaper 8/16 bit uC's for many low-end projects
but where it really shines is in projects that need precise timing
and video for just 8 dollars....the prop owns this niche.
Leon said...
The other company will be producing their second-generation chips in a year or so, with four 800 MHz cores and up to 32 threads delivering 3200 MIPS.
That's very good news, I only wish I had little more time to play with·"the other company" chips too.
In my own·view of this so called "software defined" market, I see·roughly 4 segments:
1. SX line (and·despite being more like a conventional MCU with fixed peripherals,·the·SiLabs C8051F36x)
2.·Parallax P8X32, maybe the singled core XS1-L1
3.·XMOS XS1-L2 and XS1-L4
4.·Tilera Corporation and other players
With the prop II Parallax will be entering segment 3, XMOS will add a new faster core, maybe sooner than the Prop II.
I don't really see·any dramatic event, I think that·some segment overlapping between the different·offerings is HEALTHY.
Furthermore, raw power is not everything.
For example, I've seen many attempts at emulating the SID chip with AVR ATmega (which has the almighty hardware MUL), and even in FPGAs, but the one from Ahle2 on Propeller was the first to have filters. How come?!?
Oh yes,·also the XMOS "C recompile" had filters, but·it has been·already said why that is sort of·cheating
Back on·topic, possible applications of a 2-COG propeller.
Let's recall what we have:
- The pjv project, volume·reasonably high to have had Chip's attention.
-·Hypothetical own use by Parallax as SX28 replacement on Basic Stamps??? this would have been·part of the answer to "it's viable for Parallax?", but they probably stocked enough SX chips for this purpose.
- Other ideas? With 2 COGs, I only see fixed function uses: a specific coprocessor chip, with COG#1 managing the command interface and decoding, and leaving to COG#2 the work choosen from the still large library of single COG objects: in short, the "poor man's PAL/GAL/CPLD"!
Leon,
Please refrain from pushing XMOS. It's not appropriate to the subject of the thread nor is it appropriate to the subject of this forum. It would be different if you had some analysis appropriate to the thread comparing something specific in the Prop's architecture to the XMOS architecture, but you're just telling people to look at XMOS's information.
I'm just correcting some errors made by other people who started discussing XMOS in this thread. It doesn't really have any relevance to a two-cog Propeller. If people want to compare Parallax's offerings with those of XMOS, they should make sure that they get their facts straight! Pointing them to the XMOS web site is the easiest way to do this. I can compare and contrast the two architectures, if anyone really wants it, in detail, and post it here.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
@Leon
Thanks for the links, but I already had a good look at that documents when I first heard about the XC1-G4 (more than a year ago).
@Mike
Sorry, it was not my intention to bring out (again) any comparison between Propeller and XMOS chips.
I only wanted to say that, as I see it, if we draw the spectrum of the "generic reconfigurable purpose MCU" market, the low end will basically remain lighly covered without the SX line.
As an hobbist user, I can say that I would prefer a single tube of 28-pin DIPs suitable for replacing the not only the SX28 but also MCP23S17, MAX3110 and other similar chips. Especially considering that the code for such functions is already largerly written.
But Parallax has probably the best statistical data in hand to decide if it's a worthful move (the SX28 volume order trends).
Why this memory layout? To keep compatibility with existing software and the interpreter. It would be nice (but not required) for a cog to have an extra option to swap the new hub RAM into the existing ROM location to allow the interpreter to use 64KB RAM (or maybe just 60KB to keep the ROM interpreter visible).
Of course the die would be larger so it would be a little more expensive. Maybe $12 for a Prop 1.5X. I would pay that for the extra I/O, RAM & ROM.
You have a good idea and what I would like is more ram that could have a dual use for bit mapped graphics, variables or programs.· I'm more interested in having a video chip that is more computer like.· I'm interested in seeing if the Prop II can fit this desire of mine.
For my work (at work, not my personal stuff) the stuff that I used the SX on would need something the size of the SX20 or smaller.
The external EEPROM is a hassle, but I could live with it.
@LEON, sorry man you've pushed too hard. I can't takes no more, you are going on my ignore list. Don't bother responding I won't see it anyway.
Bean
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Use BASIC on the Propeller with the speed of assembly language.
PropBASIC thread http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=867134
March 2010 Nuts and Volts article·http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/cols/nv/prop/col/nvp5.pdf
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There are two rules in life: · 1) Never divulge all information
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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. [noparse][[/noparse]RUSH - Freewill]
I would urge my fellow forumistas not to be so thin-skinned regarding Leon and the XMOS. Granted, he does seem to have a fondness for the chip. But XMOS is a UK company, after all, and we should be big enough to indulge him his pride in the accomplishments of a compatriot enterprise. I have yet to see him make a comparison of the XMOS to the Propeller which unfairly disparages our favorite micro. Moreover, he's expressed a preference for the Prop where it's an appropriate choice. And I don't consider it overtly rude of him to mention steering a customer from the -- let's face it -- end-of-life SX to a workable substitute. Plus, in many cases, I suspect he's playing devil's advocate, which is a healthy and valuable asset to have in a forum like this, if it keeps us centered, and as long as we address (and refute where appropriate) the message and not attack the messenger.
Phil,
I don't mind it once in a while, but it seems like every post lately is pushing either the Microchip or XCMOS.
Everyone has their favorite microcontroller, but the parallax forum is NOT the place to continuously point people toward competitor's products. It is just rude and I'm tired of hearing it.
I can't think of ANYONE else that does this. What makes Leon so special ?
Bean
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Use BASIC on the Propeller with the speed of assembly language.
PropBASIC thread http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=867134
March 2010 Nuts and Volts article·http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/cols/nv/prop/col/nvp5.pdf
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There are two rules in life: · 1) Never divulge all information
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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. [noparse][[/noparse]RUSH - Freewill]
I think the main issue with Leon isn't that he brings up facts about other processors, but it's the trollish way that he does it.· He provides just enough information so he can state that chip XYZ is better than the SX or the Prop because of its peripherals or raw instruction speed.· However, he doesn't provide enough information to fairly compare the chips, such as package type, support circuitry required, full system cost, etc.
I have worked with the TI DM642 chip for over 3 years at two different companies.· It will run at 720 MHz and perform 8 instructions per cycle, which works out to 5,760 MIPS.· TI quotes a price of $34 in quantities of 1,000.· This is a great chip, but it has nothing to do with the market that the SX or Prop are in.· It is used for real-time video coding and decoding, and it comes in a big BGA package and requires DRAM and other support circuitry.
When Leon touts other manufacturers on this forum he is being a troll and not a messenger.· To be fair to Leon, most of his posts do not promote another manufacturer, and they do provide useful information.· Unfortunately, a small percentage of his post do promote other manufacturers, which raises emotions with other members of the forum.
IMHO Leon can say whatever he likes about anything, because he has a Burmese cat. Or maybe I should correct that - he is owned by a Burmese cat. Actually, thinking of the clever things my Burmese cats get up to, maybe 'Leon' is the cat?!
Perhaps Burmese cats have an innate preference for XMOS over the Propeller? They may have different criteria for choosing a particular microprocessor compared to us humans; - these cats like warmth, so maybe they might prefer the chip that runs warmer?
I do hope no cats are offended by these comments...
I've come to just ignore it, for the most part. The missing element in the discussion is often either complexity, or price be it dev tools or necessary support components. On a feature / power / price basis, that can look attractive. However...
The Prop is kind of easy and friendly to work with. That's really all I need to know. I'm quite sure others will go looking and here's the thing:
If they are not impacted by those other trade-offs, they in all likelihood have already gone looking, rendering the plug redundant. If they are impacted, they will go and look ONCE, maybe twice, then think better of it, just like I did.
I just got back from the Fourth of July fireworks, but I see they're not over yet!
Bean said...
What makes Leon so special ?
The breadth and depth of his experience.
Please be assured: I do not condone trollish behavior on this or any other forum. But I can ignore it. It keeps me sane, and I still benefit from the good that doesn't get discarded with the bad. That's strictly a personal choice, though. Others, obviously, feel differently.
Dr_Acula said...
Perhaps Burmese cats have an innate preference for XMOS over the Propeller? ... these cats like warmth, so maybe they might prefer the chip that runs warmer?
I have had enough of Leon. I will be formally writing to Parallax requesting him eo be banned. I asked for this a while ago and for a little while Leon refrained.
I do not care how much experience he has. It is downright rude what he does. I already commented yesterday on another thread.
Once again Leon has sidetracked a well-intentioned discussion.
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I'm very interested in discussing, or (friendly) fighting about architectural matters and similar topics with Leon, but it's probably best to bring those matters in the sandbox forum next time (this advice is for myself too, and first!).
My apologies to all. Looking back over the posts it seems I am responsible for dropping a cigarette but(t?) in the forest and starting a forest fire, as it were. Back on page three I mentioned "Software Defined Silicon" w.r.t. "poor mans FPGA" as promoted by ". A certain other company". Be sure not to hang the wrong man.
However I reserve the right to make comparisons between the Prop and pretty much anything else in the universe if I think it is meaningful and/or useful to do so at the time.
I'm still not sold on the idea of a 2 Cog Prop. Especially as a continuation of the SX, BASIC stamp, whatever line of thinking (to be honest I don't know much about such things). Do we want to live in a kind or Arduino world forever? That space seems pretty full already.
So unless someone has the balls to put a deposit on half a million 2 Cog Props in an 18 pin package or such I think Parallax would be better off putting all their resources into the future not the past.
Of course if someone does have a real requirement for such a Prop and is prepared to pony up then this discussion suddenly becomes meaningful.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
No heater, it wasn't you. There is a difference between discussion and blatant abuse to try and convert everyone away from the prop, be it to an Xmos, PIC or AVR, the intent is always present. I am not the only one to have been offended by Leon over the past year+.
I enjoy·relevant discussion when it is called for. As I have agreed many times, the prop is not the solution for everything. There are better or cheaper chips in many areas, but the prop is so special in that it can replace many family variants of chips in a large number of extremely different fields. But we do not need to have it shoved down our throats all the time, especially when the thread does not really invite it.
As I said, I have had enough and my complaint will go ahead.
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I can't see how mentioning that there is
a 30.00, 512 pin BGA, 4 core uC out there
will touch propeller sales. That chip is simply
not hobbyist friendly at all. It's suitable
only for very different projects than the trusty
prop is. Now the new prop2 might be able to take
some sales away from the XMOS chip, especially
if it costs 10.00 ... <evil grin> I hope when the prop2 is
released that there is a lot of discussion on the
XMOS board about it </evil grin>
I enjoy Leon's posts. They won't lure me away to
XMOS land.
I started a thread a while back in the Sandbox that
compared parallax stuff to Arduino. Parallax chimed
in on the thread and said it was an example of the kind
of discussion that was perfectly acceptable here on this
board.
Leon seems obsessed with the idea that anything the Prop can do, Xmos can do better (I can do an-y-thing bet-ter than youuuuuu ... great, now I have that song stuck in my head). And if you want to spend more for a chip that is only available in really unfriendly form factors that takes way more power, then yes Xmos can do a lot of stuff the Prop can. I mean, it runs at 400 MHz and has hardware multiply and divide, coooool. Although I hear the deterministic timing might glitch now and then if you actually use the divide function. And the only Xmos solution I've ever seen actually posted for video involved an entire core (a much bigger investment than a cog, "threads" in Xmos land are meant to be what cogs are to the prop). 50% of a chip that already costs more than the P8X32A instead of 12% to do the same thing, well that's ... competitive.
The fact that people are pining on this forum for the SX when the Prop is available shows that a slower, less capable chip can be more desirable when it's cheaper and easier to use for some specific purpose. A 2-cog Prop would be, very approximately, similar to SX in terms of statistics but it would be very different to use and a lot of software would be very difficult to port. It's just a different thing.
Similarly, Xmos and the Prop are not quite the same thing, although they are both different enough from just about everything else in similar ways to get lumped together a lot. A 4-core Xmos chip has the MIPS statistics of the Intel Atom processor in my new EEEPC (though, as with the 2-core Prop and SX, not necessarily the ability to fulfill the Atom's role). People who are looking to the prop simply do not need that kind of horsepower, and often don't want to pay for the power supply necessary to support it.
I've used the Propeller for a data logger application where a client needed VGA, SD card, printer, and one or two other things. It was ideal for that purpose. XMOS chips are more suitable for high-end applications like USB audio, FPGA replacement and driving large LED arrays.
The single-core XMOS XS1-L1 comes in a 64 pin QFP package, delivers 400 MIPS and costs about the same as the Propeller. With up to eight hardware threads and the capability of multiple units communicating over very fast XLinks it's proving very popular for robotic applications, especially as it's available from XMOS on a $99 board that is easily daisy-chained. It's also available on a $50 board from Sparkfun.
I don't think that the Intel Atom gets used very much in embedded systems, unlike XMOS devices.
The XMOS company is similar in many ways to Parallax, both have about 50 employees, both are committed to the hobbyist and educational markets, and both provide free development tools and low-cost hardware. University staff can apply to XMOS for $250 worth of free hardware - a friend of mine who runs the embedded systems lab. in a French grande ecole has bought a few XMOS boards for student projects with his allocation. XMOS also donates free hardware to students who are working on interesting projects, and gives lots of them jobs during the summer vac.
After two years of trading, XMOS is rumoured to be going for an IPO, which means that they must be making substantial profits.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Holy Smile... that XMOS chip needs more than a dozen decoupling caps??? Shoots that competive cost right out the window, doesn't it??? Also, the programmer/debugger is 3 times the cost! I think I'll stick with my trusty props.
The XTAG is $49. It uses an XMOS chip, is user-programmable, and can actually be used for applications. $50 for the little Sparkfun board that delivers 400 MIPS isn't expensive, even with all those capacitors.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
I won't lie, you make it sound interesting Leon. I would only desire it in an application requiring high amounts of number-crunching with low worries for cost/power. I could see using this on some robots, but not without the trusty Propeller as well. Just wondering, do you act this way on the XMOS forums as well with the Propeller?
Comments
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/4/2010 9:54:44 PM GMT
@all: As for other chips being able to replace the SX... There are many, depending on your specifications. I can think of 1 that will not cost anything for most people - use a PC!!! You already have one, it can be faster than most micro chips, it has an excellent screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. Just run an emulation. But that is not the point is it!
The discussion here is whether a 2 cog propeller (or another variation or the existing prop) could be the next step for the SX people. Some have already taken the plunge to the Prop, but we are looking at easier/cheaper ways for this. There ARE other solutions, but that is not the point here. Of course then follows the question "Is it viable for Parallax?".
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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)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz
They use a 4 core version here that runs at 1600mips.
But it's a 30 dollar BGA chip that is not easy or fun to play
with. It uses a version of C called XC...looks pretty much the
same as normal C but with some add ons for multiple
cores. I don't write code for this or for the multi core Cell processors
that are also used in some equipment. I'm stuck programming
for single core Harvard chips mostly. The new Prop2 should be
better than the 4 core 1600mips chip...and cost less.
The prop can't compete with cheaper 8/16 bit uC's for many low-end projects
but where it really shines is in projects that need precise timing
and video for just 8 dollars....the prop owns this niche.
I just love the strange and wonderful Propeller
In my own·view of this so called "software defined" market, I see·roughly 4 segments:
1. SX line (and·despite being more like a conventional MCU with fixed peripherals,·the·SiLabs C8051F36x)
2.·Parallax P8X32, maybe the singled core XS1-L1
3.·XMOS XS1-L2 and XS1-L4
4.·Tilera Corporation and other players
With the prop II Parallax will be entering segment 3, XMOS will add a new faster core, maybe sooner than the Prop II.
I don't really see·any dramatic event, I think that·some segment overlapping between the different·offerings is HEALTHY.
Furthermore, raw power is not everything.
For example, I've seen many attempts at emulating the SID chip with AVR ATmega (which has the almighty hardware MUL), and even in FPGAs, but the one from Ahle2 on Propeller was the first to have filters. How come?!?
Oh yes,·also the XMOS "C recompile" had filters, but·it has been·already said why that is sort of·cheating
Back on·topic, possible applications of a 2-COG propeller.
Let's recall what we have:
- The pjv project, volume·reasonably high to have had Chip's attention.
-·Hypothetical own use by Parallax as SX28 replacement on Basic Stamps??? this would have been·part of the answer to "it's viable for Parallax?", but they probably stocked enough SX chips for this purpose.
- Other ideas? With 2 COGs, I only see fixed function uses: a specific coprocessor chip, with COG#1 managing the command interface and decoding, and leaving to COG#2 the work choosen from the still large library of single COG objects: in short, the "poor man's PAL/GAL/CPLD"!
Regards
Alessandro
www.xmos.com/technology/xc
The architecture has some very interesting features, also:
www.xmos.com/technology/architecture
I can't see the Propeller II competing with it in many applications.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/4/2010 9:40:44 PM GMT
Please refrain from pushing XMOS. It's not appropriate to the subject of the thread nor is it appropriate to the subject of this forum. It would be different if you had some analysis appropriate to the thread comparing something specific in the Prop's architecture to the XMOS architecture, but you're just telling people to look at XMOS's information.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/4/2010 9:49:07 PM GMT
Thanks for the links, but I already had a good look at that documents when I first heard about the XC1-G4 (more than a year ago).
@Mike
Sorry, it was not my intention to bring out (again) any comparison between Propeller and XMOS chips.
I only wanted to say that, as I see it, if we draw the spectrum of the "generic reconfigurable purpose MCU" market, the low end will basically remain lighly covered without the SX line.
As an hobbist user, I can say that I would prefer a single tube of 28-pin DIPs suitable for replacing the not only the SX28 but also MCP23S17, MAX3110 and other similar chips. Especially considering that the code for such functions is already largerly written.
But Parallax has probably the best statistical data in hand to decide if it's a worthful move (the SX28 volume order trends).
Regards
Alessandro
Are you a fan of Francois Truffaut?
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
The external EEPROM is a hassle, but I could live with it.
@LEON, sorry man you've pushed too hard. I can't takes no more, you are going on my ignore list. Don't bother responding I won't see it anyway.
Bean
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Use BASIC on the Propeller with the speed of assembly language.
PropBASIC thread http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=867134
March 2010 Nuts and Volts article·http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/cols/nv/prop/col/nvp5.pdf
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There are two rules in life:
· 1) Never divulge all information
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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. [noparse][[/noparse]RUSH - Freewill]
-Phil
I don't mind it once in a while, but it seems like every post lately is pushing either the Microchip or XCMOS.
Everyone has their favorite microcontroller, but the parallax forum is NOT the place to continuously point people toward competitor's products. It is just rude and I'm tired of hearing it.
I can't think of ANYONE else that does this. What makes Leon so special ?
Bean
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Use BASIC on the Propeller with the speed of assembly language.
PropBASIC thread http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=867134
March 2010 Nuts and Volts article·http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/cols/nv/prop/col/nvp5.pdf
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There are two rules in life:
· 1) Never divulge all information
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. [noparse][[/noparse]RUSH - Freewill]
I think the main issue with Leon isn't that he brings up facts about other processors, but it's the trollish way that he does it.· He provides just enough information so he can state that chip XYZ is better than the SX or the Prop because of its peripherals or raw instruction speed.· However, he doesn't provide enough information to fairly compare the chips, such as package type, support circuitry required, full system cost, etc.
I have worked with the TI DM642 chip for over 3 years at two different companies.· It will run at 720 MHz and perform 8 instructions per cycle, which works out to 5,760 MIPS.· TI quotes a price of $34 in quantities of 1,000.· This is a great chip, but it has nothing to do with the market that the SX or Prop are in.· It is used for real-time video coding and decoding, and it comes in a big BGA package and requires DRAM and other support circuitry.
When Leon touts other manufacturers on this forum he is being a troll and not a messenger.· To be fair to Leon, most of his posts do not promote another manufacturer, and they do provide useful information.· Unfortunately, a small percentage of his post do promote other manufacturers, which raises emotions with other members of the forum.
Dave
Perhaps Burmese cats have an innate preference for XMOS over the Propeller? They may have different criteria for choosing a particular microprocessor compared to us humans; - these cats like warmth, so maybe they might prefer the chip that runs warmer?
I do hope no cats are offended by these comments...
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www.smarthome.viviti.com/propeller
Post Edited (Dr_Acula) : 7/5/2010 1:44:47 AM GMT
The Prop is kind of easy and friendly to work with. That's really all I need to know. I'm quite sure others will go looking and here's the thing:
If they are not impacted by those other trade-offs, they in all likelihood have already gone looking, rendering the plug redundant. If they are impacted, they will go and look ONCE, maybe twice, then think better of it, just like I did.
[noparse]:)[/noparse]
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Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
8x8 color 80 Column NTSC Text Object
Wondering how to set tile colors in the graphics_demo.spin?
Safety Tip: Life is as good as YOU think it is!
The breadth and depth of his experience.
Please be assured: I do not condone trollish behavior on this or any other forum. But I can ignore it. It keeps me sane, and I still benefit from the good that doesn't get discarded with the bad. That's strictly a personal choice, though. Others, obviously, feel differently.
LOL!
-Phil
I do not care how much experience he has. It is downright rude what he does. I already commented yesterday on another thread.
Once again Leon has sidetracked a well-intentioned discussion.
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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)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz
Post Edited (Kevin Wood) : 7/6/2010 2:44:46 AM GMT
I don't think there's any need to ban anyone!
I'm very interested in discussing, or (friendly) fighting about architectural matters and similar topics with Leon, but it's probably best to bring those matters in the sandbox forum next time (this advice is for myself too, and first!).
Alessandro
So why ask for Leon to be banned?
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www.fd.com.my
www.mercedes.com.my
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
However I reserve the right to make comparisons between the Prop and pretty much anything else in the universe if I think it is meaningful and/or useful to do so at the time.
I'm still not sold on the idea of a 2 Cog Prop. Especially as a continuation of the SX, BASIC stamp, whatever line of thinking (to be honest I don't know much about such things). Do we want to live in a kind or Arduino world forever? That space seems pretty full already.
So unless someone has the balls to put a deposit on half a million 2 Cog Props in an 18 pin package or such I think Parallax would be better off putting all their resources into the future not the past.
Of course if someone does have a real requirement for such a Prop and is prepared to pony up then this discussion suddenly becomes meaningful.
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For me, the past is not over yet.
I enjoy·relevant discussion when it is called for. As I have agreed many times, the prop is not the solution for everything. There are better or cheaper chips in many areas, but the prop is so special in that it can replace many family variants of chips in a large number of extremely different fields. But we do not need to have it shoved down our throats all the time, especially when the thread does not really invite it.
As I said, I have had enough and my complaint will go ahead.
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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)·
· Prop OS: SphinxOS·, PropDos , PropCmd··· Search the Propeller forums·(uses advanced Google search)
My cruising website is: ·www.bluemagic.biz·· MultiBlade Props: www.cluso.bluemagic.biz
a 30.00, 512 pin BGA, 4 core uC out there
will touch propeller sales. That chip is simply
not hobbyist friendly at all. It's suitable
only for very different projects than the trusty
prop is. Now the new prop2 might be able to take
some sales away from the XMOS chip, especially
if it costs 10.00 ... <evil grin> I hope when the prop2 is
released that there is a lot of discussion on the
XMOS board about it </evil grin>
I enjoy Leon's posts. They won't lure me away to
XMOS land.
I started a thread a while back in the Sandbox that
compared parallax stuff to Arduino. Parallax chimed
in on the thread and said it was an example of the kind
of discussion that was perfectly acceptable here on this
board.
The fact that people are pining on this forum for the SX when the Prop is available shows that a slower, less capable chip can be more desirable when it's cheaper and easier to use for some specific purpose. A 2-cog Prop would be, very approximately, similar to SX in terms of statistics but it would be very different to use and a lot of software would be very difficult to port. It's just a different thing.
Similarly, Xmos and the Prop are not quite the same thing, although they are both different enough from just about everything else in similar ways to get lumped together a lot. A 4-core Xmos chip has the MIPS statistics of the Intel Atom processor in my new EEEPC (though, as with the 2-core Prop and SX, not necessarily the ability to fulfill the Atom's role). People who are looking to the prop simply do not need that kind of horsepower, and often don't want to pay for the power supply necessary to support it.
The single-core XMOS XS1-L1 comes in a 64 pin QFP package, delivers 400 MIPS and costs about the same as the Propeller. With up to eight hardware threads and the capability of multiple units communicating over very fast XLinks it's proving very popular for robotic applications, especially as it's available from XMOS on a $99 board that is easily daisy-chained. It's also available on a $50 board from Sparkfun.
I don't think that the Intel Atom gets used very much in embedded systems, unlike XMOS devices.
The XMOS company is similar in many ways to Parallax, both have about 50 employees, both are committed to the hobbyist and educational markets, and both provide free development tools and low-cost hardware. University staff can apply to XMOS for $250 worth of free hardware - a friend of mine who runs the embedded systems lab. in a French grande ecole has bought a few XMOS boards for student projects with his allocation. XMOS also donates free hardware to students who are working on interesting projects, and gives lots of them jobs during the summer vac.
After two years of trading, XMOS is rumoured to be going for an IPO, which means that they must be making substantial profits.
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/6/2010 12:31:14 AM GMT
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Leon Heller
Amateur radio callsign: G1HSM
Post Edited (Leon) : 7/6/2010 12:53:28 AM GMT
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90 * 2 = Pi