Turning propeller chips into micro computers
robot mogul
Posts: 32
Propeller chips can be turned into powerful miniature computers. Heres how: Download basic stamp 2.5 v software, make sure the program is correct, then click directive three times, youll see the option View Propeller Chip, click on it and a screen will open, do you want to proceed, if yes, click yes, if no, click cancel, go to the screen where it says Make New Program, click it, program it, and have your way the rest of the way. This is only micro computer compatible with kjl1 model robots.
Comments
Same for using PowerPC computer to program x86 computer (although there are few very efficient x86 interpreters out there, you gotta know where to find it...)
And for using it as a general CPU, it's possible. But the problem is, your COGs only have 2KB COG-RAMs compared to two 16 - 64KB Level 1 cache RAMs in both powerPC and x86 CPUs, making it a bit difficult, if not impossible. However, if you long for classic-y touch, you can always try Ataris firmware to run GUI desktop of a 68k-based Ataris personal computer. But Windows? No way. MS-DOS? Ho hum.... Again, RAM size still do limit on what the x86 interpreter can do inside Propeller (but still can be done for maybe 80186 softwares). uCLinux would work, but the C++ ports for Propeller are still growing and maturing, it would be a while before you see a happy propeller beanie-wearing fat penguin waving back at you on monitor (or TV) whilst booting up. It will take a lot of works to turn Propeller into a general CPU will take a lot of work (thus entails lot of frustrations and rainbows of carefully-chosen four-letters words), trust me.
The next big leap is moving from text based operating systems to graphics based. Keep watching all the threads. I think soon we will be up to the late 1980s.
See the link below for screenshots of microcomputers runnning on the Propeller. I think the best so far has been Pacman in color.
I have a Prop in front of me with 32MBytes of SDRAM attached and the possibility of many giga bytes of file system storage. I can program it in C++.
Apart from the speed and ignoring emulation of any actual previous machine I would say the Prop as a micro-computer (not controller) has now arrived somewhere about 1991. That is before the world went all graphical with the coming of Windows 3.1.
Now, we actually only need to get up to 1995 and the rest should be achievable because once Windoze went past 98 things slowed because of bloatware even though the processors got faster <tongue-in-cheek>
See the new graphical OS thread with video I just started. It is a bit slow at the moment, but I reckon we are now into the 2000's...
Hmm, the graphics on that site reminds me of a Vic 20
Aaargh... 1980. Going backwards now?!
BTW, if you guys succeed in running Windows 95 on Prop, that's called luck, guts, and dedication. I would be really surprised.
And a language to tie it all together (I'm thinking a startup in Spin, with Catalina for the heavy lifting code).
So much is already done - mouse, keyboard, mass storage on an sd card, external ram. Hi resolution video is the missing link but there have been some interesting developments recently. Once you have the basic building blocks, self hosting development might soon be possible.
Very optimistically.
The Prop has no floating point support so it's not up with the 486.
The Prop is a 32 Bit machine so it is a step up from the 16 bit 286.
The Prop has no memory manager, so back down at 8086 level.
The Prop does match the clock speed of a 386 but only with the limited scope of PASM. With LMM for larger programs we are back to 8086. With external memory for realistic apps we are back down to Z80:)
Let's face it any comparison to a real micro-processor make no sense.
We have had Z80 emulation and CP/M running on the Prop one way and another for some time now. Many question the sanity of that:) At least it does achieve a speed comparable to an original CP/M machine.
x86 emulation will be an order of magnitude bigger effort, and bigger code and slower running. Especially if you go for 386 vintage with memory management. Prop II will bring a significant speed up but I'm still not convinced it could match an original 386.
I have though about this some and decided that it's not for me. Still the Prop seems to achieve the impossible quite often.
I remember the C64 doing a GUI, and there was the Atari (I think) that everybody used for MIDI and as a poor man's MAC.
Is that because Windows was never of any use?
Jumps into nearest bomb shelter:)
Part of my motivation for CP/M on the Prop was as a tribute to Gary Kildall and Digital Research. The source code is available and hence encourages the effort for preservation. There is no such motivation for MSDOS/Windows.
Do you mean GEOS? http://toastytech.com/guis/c64g.html
I'm now wondering why no one has stepped up to port CONTIKI to the Prop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiki
Yes, that was it. I lost the faith and got a PC just as that was getting going. I had the CBM128 because it had the Z80 inside too.
I had never heard of the Contiki, if I get a version running on one of the AVRs I have then I could dream about tranfers.
It's a three prop board, does VGA, keyboard, maus (its German) ethernet, sound, SD, and has 1 meg of SRAM. This pin-out is different, but ithey run everything from the OBEX AFAIK.
The Tri-OS is like CP/M or linux. They have a bunch of guy developing on it, and a bunch of applications.
They just made another batch of (Rev14) boards.
http://hive-project.de/
Google translate does well enough, it comes out kind of like "What's Up, Tiger-Lily?".
Couldn't we just put up a blue background and put some obscure message about writing to memory blocks xxx at yyy. Thats WinEMU sorted.
-phar
I have been getting into very hot water for cracking such jokes around here:)
Smalltalk, the first real graphical user interface was developed by Xerox, Palo Alto. The design criteria was to make something eminently understandable with out care of cost.
The September 1981 issue of Byte magazine was entirely devoted to it. In that issue there was no adds for IBM but onl a rumor mentioning IBM bringing out a personal computer in the next year.
After working at a large plant making Wordprocessors as lead line test engineer, I introduced that company to CP/M and saw how they could screw up such an elegant system as CP/M. I changed jobs and worked for a small startup company.
I was working on the development of an MP/M system on what was then the standard S100 bus. We had only 128K of RAM.( should have been 256K but were still debugging access to the second two banks of memory) We had 5Meg hard drives and 5 1/4 inch floppys.
MP/M or CP/M for single users had Smalltalk 80, PL/I ,APL, Forth and many other languages. We could run four users on the that system with Wordstar.
Needless to say the bottom of that nascent industry fell out after the introduction of the IBM PC
In my opinion it was MP/M that forced IBM to bring out that piece of Smile they called a personal computer (16K of ram and cassette tape drive for storage )
The intention of IBM was to destroy the thriving microcomputer industry at that time. They set back the microcomputer business by maybe 10 years.
WHY?
MP/M would have blown away the huge margins of the mini computer business!
As for graphical user interfaces, Apple tried to copy the Smalltalk interface but not the language. Compared to Smalltalk the MAC was a horrible kludge. Of course Microsoft Windows was not even marketable until version 3.1. But both we only user interfaces. They did not come even close to the functionality of Smalltalk.
As for why you don't see many Smalltalk systems even to-day that's because it's almost impossible to hide the source code in Smalltalk.
If you want to make a graphical interface to-day, I would consider "Squeak", but you will need extended memory. It would be an interesting project. Parallax have borrowed some of the language of object orintated systems but not the meat. The propeller architecture might be well adaptable to Smalltalk.
Just the musings of a semi retired old fart.
Perry
Thanks... I was just biting my toungue! :-)
Bill
Windows 95 execution on Propeller is especially tough (although IT'S possible that Windows 98SE would work on 386s - whatever you have in the ATX case really do vary.) - it's still called luck... -____- That's why I noticed BOCHS got some emulation schemes kinda wrong (still run fine... Until it stumbles in general protection traps, in both emulated x86 CPU and even PowerPC / x86 host CPU. Ta-Da, instant BSOD.)
So, in the end, I would perfer to use x86 emulation on Prop for to run 80186 microcontroller softwares.
Perry, I would agree on Smalltalk. Still, CPU emulation is a issue, but if it's ported for Zilog Z80, then yes. It can be done (just need seperate processor or maybe large RAM, up to 2MB for CPU emulation, tiny Smalltalk OS kernel and graphics.) - who knows? Propeller's always full of surprises.
A jaundiced view of Windoze was the result of my fights with my PC over the weekend.
Nice to read your Smalltalk history. You are right in your description of Smalltalk as a windowing system - in an era where most consumer apps were still character based - Smalltalk was built as an interpreted windowed environment. Just a small point, Smalltalk (Smalltalk V from Digitalk and ParcPlace Smalltalk to name a few) was a fully object-oriented language and development environment where you could actually subclass the kernel and and optional very easy to use WindowBuilder windowing system. Nothing has matched the way you would add functions and classes in place in the system class hierarchy and actually change the the kernal image. Smalltalk was essentially replaced by Java as the internet became widespread in 95. Java, which was also influenced by C++ succeeded and still does primarily because it was designed as a network centric API from the start.
An example of Smalltalk-turned-Java framework is the object relational mapping layer - TopLink. This API orginally written in Smalltalk was ported to Java and now exists as EclipseLink in most EE application servers and the Eclipse IDE.
I posted this message because I started formal programming in university with Smalltalk for 3 years and studied under the original prof. founders of TopLink before I arrived full circle, after C/C++ telecom development, working on the product 10 years later when Java was more mature and enterprise ready - I miss the Smalltalk language but not its limitations in the early 90's OS's. A port would require 1Mb and at least a GC cog.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopLink
thank you
/michael
Slightly off-topic, but whenever anyone mentions Contiki and computers, I always think of the Tiki 100(Z80 based computers sold here in Norway) which in the beginning also ran an OS called ConTiki. That is, until Thor Heyerdal and the people at the Contiki museum heard about it...
Then it changed name to KP/M, which also reflected its true nature as a CP/M clone.
(I used Borland CP/M tools on it. That's how compatible it was. )
Do you have a NasSys for your DracNascom?
The monitor programs were quite highly admired for their usability and editing, all in 1-2KBs.
Speaking of the JVM, the Java Optimized Processor is a VHDL model of a Java machine that gets implemented on FPGA's and they've got the JNode Java operating system running on that. The JOP runs a stripped-down version of Java byte-code, so potentially you could port JNode by emulating that.
-phar