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Propeller Ardunio Shilelds? — Parallax Forums

Propeller Ardunio Shilelds?

AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
edited 2012-02-28 13:44 in Propeller 1
I was looking around for Arduino shields that are based on Propeller chips? Has anyone made one or seen one? I am familiar with the Propeller Arduino compatible boards, but that's not what I am looking for. Looking for someone that has made a shield that goes on a AVR based Arduino that has a Propeller on it for video or something.

Thanks,

Andre'

Comments

  • Bill HenningBill Henning Posts: 6,445
    edited 2011-03-05 14:25
    I've got something like that in my design queue... its a couple of months away though.

    For now, a Propeller Backpack would work quite well...
    AndreL wrote: »
    I was looking around for Arduino shields that are based on Propeller chips? Has anyone made one or seen one? I am familiar with the Propeller Arduino compatible boards, but that's not what I am looking for. Looking for someone that has made a shield that goes on a AVR based Arduino that has a Propeller on it for video or something.

    Thanks,

    Andre'
  • Clive WakehamClive Wakeham Posts: 152
    edited 2011-03-05 14:30
    http://www.gadgetgangster.com/find-a-project.html?maincat=11

    Propeller based systems and boards based on a shield design.
  • PropabilityPropability Posts: 142
    edited 2011-03-05 15:21
    Awhile back there was the Propellurino.
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2011-03-05 15:25
    I think Andre' was looking for Propeller based products that sat ON TOP of the Ardunio.

    Of course, Bill will come up with something spectacular.
    Clive Wakeham wrote: »
    http://www.gadgetgangster.com/find-a-project.html?maincat=11

    Propeller based systems and boards based on a shield design.
  • Chris MicroChris Micro Posts: 160
    edited 2011-03-06 03:44
    AndreL wrote: »
    I was looking around for Arduino shields that are based on Propeller chips? Has anyone made one or seen one? I am familiar with the Propeller Arduino compatible boards, but that's not what I am looking for. Looking for someone that has made a shield that goes on a AVR based Arduino that has a Propeller on it for video or something.

    Thanks,

    Andre'


    Hi AndreL,

    I made the Propellurino: http://www.hobby-roboter.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=72

    My purpose was not to make money with it but to gain some attention to my web site. I gave some workshops with the propellurino an sold about 20 of them. There would have been room for more and I had several requests.
    I'm sure there is a lot of potential for a new propellurino shield. To increase the user value two more things should be added to the shield:
    sd-card interface
    Ethernet connector
    One very important point is that most Arduino users don't want to solder. So someone has to provide a ready to use board. Due to the legal regulations ( there is an electronic scrap law here in Germany where you have to provide a dedicated dust bin for electronics which costs you around 2000€ when you are a company ) the effort was to high for me to provide such a board.
    I appreciate if you would provide a new board. You could name it "propellurino advanced" or something similar. You could benefit from the name because the propellurino is metnioned in some books yet.
    BTW: here you will find the schematic of the propellurino http://www.hobby-roboter.de/forum/download/file.php?id=86
  • RS_JimRS_Jim Posts: 1,768
    edited 2011-03-06 04:51
    Hi
    check out this thread: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?124288-Propeller-ASC-(Arduino-Shield-Compatible)
    RS_Jim
  • PJAllenPJAllen Banned Posts: 5,065
    edited 2011-03-06 05:25
    How much do they charge for a "dedicated dust bin for electronics"
    in the People's Republic of China?
    You can import without let or hindrance, but "Hecho en Duitsland" is Verbotten.
    That's why -- The East is Red!
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2011-03-06 05:34
    AndreL wrote: »
    I was looking around for Arduino shields that are based on Propeller chips? Has anyone made one or seen one? I am familiar with the Propeller Arduino compatible boards, but that's not what I am looking for. Looking for someone that has made a shield that goes on a AVR based Arduino that has a Propeller on it for video or something.
    That sounds cool but isn't it a bit like the tail wagging the dog? The Propeller is a 32 bit microcontroller with 32k of RAM and the Arduino has an 8 bit microcontroller with 2k of RAM. However, I guess that's not much different than modern PCs where the graphics card often is more powerful than the main CPU. Anyway, I look forward to what you come up with! A shield with TV/VGA and audio output, a couple of PS2 ports, and a place to plug in some joysticks would be pretty cool.
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2011-03-06 13:47
    The thing is there are like 50,000 arduinos out there I would say, maybe 100,000. But, that said selling 20 units is horrific :) This market is just very hard to make money in. Anyway, mine is just for arduino users that want to make games and do graphics. I already have the product name and theme, I am calling it the "Scorpion Retro Gaming Shield" - going to do a red PCB with the scorpion on the back, should be pretty slick. And @David, sometimes the best hardware doesn't get accepted, sometimes its nerd appeal or simplicity. The Apple 2 is the perfect example, its a JOKE compared to the Atari 800 or C64 technically. But, didn't matter people LOVED LOVED LOVED their Apples. And even me, an Atari game programmer back in the day, used to always have a warm spot for the Apple, its green screen, it was like the little train that could kind of thing, always struggling to draw lines and plot pixels where the Atari and C64 had custom hardware to do all kinds of crazy things.

    But, there are a lot of Arduinos, might as well give them something they can use and if it has a prop on it all the better, then they can re-program it and change the drivers.

    I am about finished with this design. I really started on this 2 years ago when I did the chameleons, I was just going to do a shield for the Arduino, but then I am like why not just make one both with both and do an AVR and PIC version. Now, I am just coming back to it thinking, there are tens of thousands of customers that might want a Prop graphics accelerator on their arduino, so I will give it a try.

    But, Chris's 20 units is scary :) I think the main point is a lot of people talk a good game, but when it comes to actually buying something they don't follow thru. Anyway, we will see --

    Andre'
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2011-03-06 13:49
    The ASC is the opposite of what I am talking about, that's just a board with the Arduino footprint. That's not what I wanted to do. There are too many of these, I made 2, then there are ARM versions, prop versions, etc. Seems that no matter what the "arduino" customer base sticks with the REAL arduino boards, period. They don't want to move onto more advanced compatibles, so I think shields is the only thing to do to get into their market. But, that said, everywhere I get data from says that for all the sheilds out there sales are poor, Arduinos sells a ton, but the shields don't seem to track the arduino sales proportionally.

    Anyway, I will do this, if I can sell 300 or so then I will break even and get a cool product out there.

    Andre'
  • ColeyColey Posts: 1,110
    edited 2011-03-06 14:11
    Andre',

    Not wanting to stop you in your efforts but this has already been done.

    Check this out....Gameduino

    This has been in development for some time and far eclipses the capabilities of our PropGFX efforts.

    The Gameduino is unique in that it has a co-processor in the FPGA core to handle line drawing tasks and other things like scrolling.

    Ironically it would make a great add on for a Propeller based system :tongue:

    Regards,

    Coley

    PS I am also in the process of attempting to persuade Baggers to open source the PropGFX Lite code.....
  • Oldbitcollector (Jeff)Oldbitcollector (Jeff) Posts: 8,091
    edited 2011-03-06 14:35
    Coley wrote: »

    PS I am also in the process of attempting to persuade Baggers to open source the PropGFX Lite code.....

    This would put a lot of steam back into Propeller gaming...

    *fingers crossed*

    OBC
  • Chris MicroChris Micro Posts: 160
    edited 2011-03-06 14:36
    AndreL wrote: »

    But, Chris's 20 units is scary :) I think the main point is a lot of people talk a good game, but when it comes to actually buying something they don't follow thru. Anyway, we will see --

    Andre'

    You shouldn't take it as a scary example. There is shure more potential for a Arduino-Propeller shield. On request was about 500 shields but it is not my main business.
    There are heaps of arduino-users and they want to have a simple to program microcontroller board. If you hide the propeller drivers an keep it easy for them to use the shield they will appreciate it.
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2011-03-06 15:21
    @Coley, I know all about James Bowmans Gameduino, the video game shield and the teleplay shields. The FPGA is great, but its fixed, no one knows verilog and updating is harder. Mine will be re-programmable by anyone that programs in SPIN/ASM can write drivers for this device. Plus, mine will be cheaper, and have a lot more features for games. I always love the idea of FPGAs, but they are $20 a pop, and no one can re-program them, installing the tools is nastly, so your "source" for updated drivers is very limited. That's why when I did the original XGS 8 years ago, I had developed a nice FPGA based GPU, but at the last min, I decided people have enough trouble with C and ASM, no one will be able to re-write my drivers in verilog or understand them (maybe 10 guys), so I thought better to use "soft" GPUs so at least there is some potential for people to make new drivers and change the configuration of the hardware.

    Anyway, the scorpion is just another option for customers that will be different than the gameduino. Like I said, I had this 2 years ago, but put it on the shelf since I decided to just integrate the Arduino and the Prop with my chameleons, but now I feel like maybe there are enough customers that might want a Prop shield for gaming (and James has the same hypothesis), so hopefully we are right :)

    Andre
  • Martin HodgeMartin Hodge Posts: 1,246
    edited 2011-03-06 17:31
    AndreL wrote: »
    The ASC is the opposite of what I am talking about, that's just a board with the Arduino footprint.

    I don't think they are as opposite as you believe. With longer tails on the headers, an ASC can plug directly into an Arduino. I don't see any major roadblock to getting them communicating. Add a KVM or VGA adapter to the stack and we have pretty much what you've described so far.
  • blittledblittled Posts: 681
    edited 2011-03-06 19:17
    Andre,

    I'm very interested in your Scorpion. I already have your excellent Chameleon - PIC and your chapter in "Programming & Customizing the Multicore Propeller Microcontroller: Official Guide" has got me thinking of how to hook up the Propeller to various other microcontrollers. I do have an Arduino and a FEZ Domino and the Scorpion will be a valuable addition to these boards.
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2011-03-06 19:49
    Dam it -- my browser crashed after I made a post. Anyway, I was saying something like I have always steered away from shields. Originally, the Chameleon WAS a shield, 2 years ago, I was going to do that. Then I got talked out of it by Make magazine and others that sell shields when they told me their sales numbers -- horrific. So, I made the Chameleons as complete products, but my idea of using a client processor to communicate over SPI to the Prop was the thing behind the Chameleons and this product as well. It's a nice way to make the little AVR look like its doing a lot and its very easy to control. Also, since I don't have to worry about power, USB, and all the other support stuff, its easier to just put features on there. The only thing that sucks is that I have to follow the foot print and put those headers down so they can stack thru and it makes it hard to squish features on the board. But, I think I have some really cool ideas. Anyway, I am going to go back to work on it -- kind of a weekend project, I am just dusting off this idea from a couple years ago since it "seems" there is interest again in a game/graphics shield considering the "video game shield", "teletext/play" shield and the very powerful "gameduino" shield.

    We will see. Anyway, I am 99% done, but if there are any hardcore Arduino users on here that have suggestions or features I will consider them since you have been using Arduinos, I haven't :)

    Andre'
  • Chris MicroChris Micro Posts: 160
    edited 2011-03-07 00:57
    You may consider: To use an Arduino is like an religion. If you try to sell an Arduino user a propeller it's like trying to convince an I-Phone user of the beauty of the command line in linux.
  • AntoineDoinelAntoineDoinel Posts: 312
    edited 2011-03-07 06:33
    @Chris

    Don't get me wrong, but I think your demo video must have scared the hell out of hardcore arduino users... it's mostly stuff running on the propeller alone, so probably they felt like someone was trying to steal the show :-D

    Anyway it's still true that, apart from Gameduino, the other video shields are not that exciting (e.g. TellyMate and similar stuff) compared to a propeller based shield.

    @Andre
    IMHO there are much better chances of acceptance by the arduino crowd if the accent is put on some flexible, multiple and runtime reconfigurable video modes. But still semi-fixed device, like an old home computer video display processor.
    Just treat the propeller as a component, without "powered by..." badge on the box, and they will be happy!

    It's a plus to have an SDK for rebuilding the system, but let them build the interest to that later (i.e. do not over advertise that), or they will go "SPIN? Bleah!" immediately LOL

    And in any case, should the sales be lower than expected, it will still make a good match to the ASC board, for a dual propeller system, or maybe you could also produce a PCB variation for the Propeller Platform.

    Regards
    Alessandro
  • AndreLAndreL Posts: 1,004
    edited 2011-03-07 20:48
    Right, I am not going to focus on the propeller, its a chip like anything else. But, I will focus on "re-programmable" and just ship the product with a nice set of NTSC and VGA drivers to get going. This seems to work on my chameleons, 90% of the customers have no idea or care about the Prop on there doing the media, and of the 10% that know about it, but I would say that maybe 3% of customers so far have messed with my default drivers. In other words, they wanted to do simple NTSC text and tile graphics, read keyboards and mice, do VGA and sound, and they are HAPPY. So, the trick is to make it black box and if they want to peek in the box, then great.

    However, one thing I will do is create a Scorpion wiki kind of thing, so others can post new better drivers etc. since this will be BSD hardware and MIT software, I want people to do whatever -- anyway, almost done with the design. Really, already had it done 2 years ago, but just dusted it off and tweaking a bit and been trying to figure out what IO's on the Arduino people use a lot, so I don't step on them. I think I have it all where I want it -- this will be a pretty cool product. Also, I think I will really take a beating on the price on this one in hopes that I make it up with volume this time. One thing I hope people don't mind is that I am going to use a 3.5mm audio stereo jack for sound, I really don't like that, I prefer RCA connectors, but there is NO room. However, I want to have stereo sound, if someone write a nice stereo driver, it will support it. Other than that, I think I have mashed all the parts on the product even with the Arduino headers sticking thru the product.

    Andre'
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2011-03-07 21:43
    One demo might be Chip's singing monks which is in stereo. It wouldn't require any input though from the Arduino. The underlying speech synthesis and stereo spatial synthesizer could be driven from that, but no ready-to-go demo for it.
  • RoadsterRoadster Posts: 209
    edited 2011-03-23 17:01
    Hows this project going, any picture you can share
  • blittledblittled Posts: 681
    edited 2011-06-20 09:31
    I was wondering if there was any updates on this project?. I'm in the process of collecting Arduino based platforms, such as the Arduino, Fez Domino, Uno32 and I will be getting a PICAxe version once it is available Stateside. I think this will be an excellent addition to these boards.
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2011-06-20 09:42
    @blittled, I have two AXE401 boards I've been playing with, and they're very nice. Pretty good pricing, assuming you already have a download cable.

    I didn't see Martin's Propeller ASC in your list (http://mghdesigns.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=1) I haven't tried one yet, but intend to.

    Having one or more Arduino-shield compatible Prop boards (which would require ADC being added, as Martin did) would go a long way to re-introducing the Propeller to the growing builder community. That's just my opinion, though.

    -- Gordon
  • blittledblittled Posts: 681
    edited 2011-06-20 15:01
    Gordon, I agree. Ever since I got my Chameleon PIC 2 years ago I've been toying with an idea of writing up something on how to leverage the Propeller as a multimedia interface for various platforms. I was thinking of using a breadboard Propeller circuit, Chip's Graphics engine and the Hydra Sound driver.

    The Scorpion would be even better than a breadboard, especially with the plethora of Arduino compatible boards that use various micro-controllers.

    I forgot about the download cable for the Picaxe. I have a FTDI breakout I may be able to rig up as a download cable.
  • blittledblittled Posts: 681
    edited 2012-02-28 13:23
    Any news on the status of the Scorpion or is it DOA? I am still very interested in it!
  • RoadsterRoadster Posts: 209
    edited 2012-02-28 13:44
    You might want to vist the xgamestation forums http://www.xgamestation.com/
    I haven't seen a post here from Andre in a long time.
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