I was disappointed by the "tough news" but not really discouraged. It sounds like it was a fairly minor problem although it had disasterous effects. I have full confidence that it will be fixed in this next spin of the chip and that things will work much better this time around! I'm looking forward to having a development board that is more the size of a QuickStart than the humongous DE2-115 board! :-)
What "tough new"? Did I miss a post? Does the p2 have further delays?
I believe this was a reference to the first batch of Propeller 2 chips that were DOA because of a minor oversight that turned into a major problem. It wasn't a design problem though so there is no reason to believe that the next batch of chips won't work better. We'll find out soon I guess!
The Spin2 that I'm working on now is for the internal 17-bit address space. I figure that at first, using this Spin2 with the SDRAM driver, one could do BIG DATA programs, with 128k of program space. That's big enough for anything I've ever wanted to do, anyway. I really like the idea of SDRAM for making a self-hosting development platform, aside from video buffering.
Don't break the glass covering the panic button just yet. Of course, further setbacks are a possibility, but, fortunately, they're referring to the issue with the initial batch of sample chips a few months back. The exact wording "tough news" comes from post 2055, wherein potatohead identified a sort of "holding pattern" development-wise that he (and others) seemed to have entered after an initial flurry of activity. I think many of us that follow this sub-forum have noticed that change, as the number of new threads and the number of overall posts have gone down over the last month or so (which I can't complain about since I'm not doing Prop 2 development like many of the folks here). This present decrease in posting is, I believe, the "calm before the storm." I think people are just being patient and one can feel the excitement and/or tension building as a new batch of test chips are predicted to hit soon, hopefully before the end of this month. Along with that, the Parallax staff really seems to have its hands busy right now (even more so than normal). For example, Chip mentioned that he's working on SPIN 2, which will obviously be useful for testing the samples when they come in. I still love it, though, when Parallax staff members take a few minutes out of their busy schedules to "throw us a bone" now and then. *UPDATE* Whoops! Another "bone" was tossed out as I wrote that.
Don't break the glass covering the panic button just yet.
No panic here. I'm entirely confident Chip & Co. will work it all out in Bristol fashion.
I just meant that when the unfortunate news came out about the first P2's, I went south and flew paragliders up and down the Baja coast. Makes the time fly by.
Speaking of Spin2, I was just wondering if any additional string functions would be added. I realize that such functionality is perhaps more naturally or fully addable via a library object, but having a bit more in the "native language" might increase the language's applicability in the education area. And while mentioning that, I'm wondering if there might be any changes or additions to the @ and @@ referencing (or related matters). Those operators are a frequent cause of head scratching, even among non-rookies. Well, perhaps there's only so much that can be done when dealing with memory and symbol references, but I was just wondering. No, I don't really have specific examples or suggestions at this point, though I do recall having some difficulty wrapping my head around how to swap strings a while back. And I can understand that there's only so much that the core language can support and that it can't anticipate every usage scenario. Again, just curious.
Although another's post prompted mine, I learned a new term from your post: Bristol fashion. It seems to overlap a bit with "shipshape" or may be used in conjunction with it. For another post on the forum the other day, I spent several minutes reading about differing origin theories for "Poms" (Aussie/NZ/So. African slang for British people). There were too many theories and not enough conclusive evidence to fully decide, but I'm leaning to one of the pomegranate theories (the prison abbreviation one seems too simplistic and rather unlikely to have caught on).
Yes. Wafers should be back from the fab in two weeks. Then, several days will be needed for transit and packaging. We'll be able to try it out once we get back packaged parts.
If my counting is correct the chips should be back from the fab today. Only a few more days to go! :-)
Can't wait! Hopefully things really work out this time. There are so many things that I would like to do that could really use the processing power that the Propeller 2 has on offer. I really like the idea of fast computation without an OS getting in the way.
Your keen observation is correct. Extracted from an email received Thursday afternoon:
"... the Fab is showing Propeller 2 wafers are at Metal 6, which means they’re almost out. We should be at etest on Friday, if not tonight."
So, hopefully we will know something very soon, and be able to test the Propeller 2 chip for ourselves with real code.
Is that a wafer-probe test at the fab, using test suites you provided ?
- enough to weed out the ones 'do not bother to encapsulate ?'
Such simple tests should give a Icc/Vcc to compare against sim ?
From what Chip has told me, I presume if this batch turns out good, and they have a decent yield, the immediate demand for chips will easily be satisfied.
Chip said some really neat things about the Propeller 2 and the status of Spin2 on the Skype call that Jeff had at the Propeller Powered Expo! It was all very exciting and encouraging! :thumb:
Chip said some really neat things about the Propeller 2 and the status of Spin2 on the Skype call that Jeff had at the Propeller Powered Expo! It was all very exciting and encouraging! :thumb:
Chip also mentioned the chips from the recent run need to be packaged before they get them, not sure how long that takes.
By the time they hit the streets I will be away in Europe for a month, oh, the agony... oh, the pain....
Maybe I will just get my pcbs manufactured and order the P2s when I'm away so that I can get straight into it when I get back.
This is so exciting.
Comments
You nailed it. That's literally what I did.
No panic here. I'm entirely confident Chip & Co. will work it all out in Bristol fashion.
I just meant that when the unfortunate news came out about the first P2's, I went south and flew paragliders up and down the Baja coast. Makes the time fly by.
Your keen observation is correct. Extracted from an email received Thursday afternoon:
"... the Fab is showing Propeller 2 wafers are at Metal 6, which means theyre almost out. We should be at etest on Friday, if not tonight."
So, hopefully we will know something very soon, and be able to test the Propeller 2 chip for ourselves with real code.
Everything crossed that it goes well, ( well everything except wires
Is that a wafer-probe test at the fab, using test suites you provided ?
- enough to weed out the ones 'do not bother to encapsulate ?'
Such simple tests should give a Icc/Vcc to compare against sim ?
"Soon son, soon"
One minute later from the back of the car "Is it ready yet?"
What do you mean it's the weekend? Out here we have to wait 24 hours per day 7 days per week:)
Chip also mentioned the chips from the recent run need to be packaged before they get them, not sure how long that takes.
C.W.
It's been a long wait.... Hope this batch of chips turn out okay!
Keep up the good work guys!
Maybe I will just get my pcbs manufactured and order the P2s when I'm away so that I can get straight into it when I get back.
This is so exciting.