A disturbing trend...
Oldbitcollector (Jeff)
Posts: 8,091
I'm addressing this toward the group of people who would love to see the Propeller in some form or fashion find it's way to the level of interest generated by the Arduino. (Those of you who a using the Propeller for as the engine in commercial, or industrial projects; this doesn't really apply to you.)
One of the strengths that the Arduino community has is the uniformity of the product itself. A large portion of the community is marching in the same direction, providing the product a LOT of traction. While the shield connector on the Arduino has a strange layout, (which I sure that folks in that community would love to see changed) current models of the board still support the exact same layout. (Yes, I know there are a handful of variations.)
We on the other hand, can't seem to agree on any one direction. (Granted, this leave us open for new innovation, and I appreciate that.) There are at least a dozen different board designs referenced within the last 20 pages of the Propeller forum. Each of them are promising, and have excellent design reasoning behind them. Almost all of them have very little in common outside having one or more Propellers installed in them. We are a group of people moving in 20 different directions at once and wonder why we aren't getting the traction that the Arduino guys are getting.
I'm watching the exact same thing happen this morning in the Quickstart thread. The Quickstart is a budget board (I'm pretty sure it's $20 price tag is below it's costs.) designed to be an evaluation board to introduce engineers/hobbiests (outside this community) to the Propeller in a non-threatening way. It's "cheaper than a decent meal" price point is designed to remove any financial objections to trying something new. I'm watching it add yet another direction to our wandering ways this morning. Don't get me wrong, I'm a HUGE fan of the Quickstart concept as a way to introduce outsiders to the Propeller. (So much so that I wrote Quickstart guides that are currently posted.) (A low priced Protoboard back in 2006 is what prompted me to take a chance on the Propeller.)
Bottom line, if we want a Propeller based board of any kind to make traction, combined efforts need to be focused in a singular direction. Personally, I'm committing a lot of efforts toward the Propeller Platform from Gadgetganster. Instead of generating more options, why don't we focus on expanding some of the current paths already started.
I apologize if this has come off as a rant. I certainly don't want to discourage ANY efforts being made to further the Propeller. I welcome rebuttal and conversation. I really feel we are moving to so many directions at once. For those who are looking for the "Ardunio killer" (silly) it would benefit us move in a more singular direction.
OBC
One of the strengths that the Arduino community has is the uniformity of the product itself. A large portion of the community is marching in the same direction, providing the product a LOT of traction. While the shield connector on the Arduino has a strange layout, (which I sure that folks in that community would love to see changed) current models of the board still support the exact same layout. (Yes, I know there are a handful of variations.)
We on the other hand, can't seem to agree on any one direction. (Granted, this leave us open for new innovation, and I appreciate that.) There are at least a dozen different board designs referenced within the last 20 pages of the Propeller forum. Each of them are promising, and have excellent design reasoning behind them. Almost all of them have very little in common outside having one or more Propellers installed in them. We are a group of people moving in 20 different directions at once and wonder why we aren't getting the traction that the Arduino guys are getting.
I'm watching the exact same thing happen this morning in the Quickstart thread. The Quickstart is a budget board (I'm pretty sure it's $20 price tag is below it's costs.) designed to be an evaluation board to introduce engineers/hobbiests (outside this community) to the Propeller in a non-threatening way. It's "cheaper than a decent meal" price point is designed to remove any financial objections to trying something new. I'm watching it add yet another direction to our wandering ways this morning. Don't get me wrong, I'm a HUGE fan of the Quickstart concept as a way to introduce outsiders to the Propeller. (So much so that I wrote Quickstart guides that are currently posted.) (A low priced Protoboard back in 2006 is what prompted me to take a chance on the Propeller.)
Bottom line, if we want a Propeller based board of any kind to make traction, combined efforts need to be focused in a singular direction. Personally, I'm committing a lot of efforts toward the Propeller Platform from Gadgetganster. Instead of generating more options, why don't we focus on expanding some of the current paths already started.
I apologize if this has come off as a rant. I certainly don't want to discourage ANY efforts being made to further the Propeller. I welcome rebuttal and conversation. I really feel we are moving to so many directions at once. For those who are looking for the "Ardunio killer" (silly) it would benefit us move in a more singular direction.
OBC
Comments
I will politely say that I couldn't disagree with you more, Jeff. The diverse, creative offerings of the Propeller community only serve to demonstrate that it is a product for a diverse and creative user base. I'm glad there are choices; in fact, I created one (original Propeller Platform for my N&V column) when I found those offered at the time didn't suit me.
Honestly, I had hoped Parallax would build that but they declined. Thankfully, Nick took it on and has run with it making new versions and lots of cool accessories for it.
Finally someone is brave enough to say what we all are thinking.
The Gadget Gangster platform is my main platform for development and is the closest thing we have to an Arduino. On the other hand I do believe the C3 is an extremely nice little board. Too bad there are not many drivers out there to even begin utilizing its potential.
I am very close to have a 320x200x4bit graphics driver running enirely from the spi-ram of the C3.
Then we could make some really good looking games and applications.
I think more people should focus on the C3 !!!
But this is way different from having a "standard" platform. I'm always a little suspicious of those who want standards. The subtext, so often, is that they want to be the ones who set the standards. (OBC, please be assured: I'm not insinuating that you have such a nefarious motive!
-Phil
That QuickStart's IDC-like connector is hard to knock, it's still (too) big. If only they'd spin out a board with a Propeller and xtal on it, and bypass-capped all around, and holes for the I/O and a 3V input. [I lie awake at night...] That'd be the ticket for me... OK, and a couple of mounting holes (for #4's). "Shields" and other handcuffs I don't need.
Electronics is electronics and tinkertoys is tinkertoys.
PE - I (heart) my Spin Stamps. They're about as close to my ideal (optimal) as I'm going to find.
It may be that Parallax has just missed what window there was to compete directly with the Arduino. Remember that the Arduino is based on older technology (8-bit AVR) than the Propeller (32-bit multicore). Remember too how much development effort has been applied to the Arduino platform by the academic community and how little relatively has been available for the Propeller. Things are shifting there and the plan to use the GCC toolchain for the Prop 2 is a good step in a right direction. As Catalina continues to mature, perhaps there'll be some crossover or cross fertilization in those two efforts.
For the engineer, the Quickstart gives a taste of how easy the Propeller could be implemented in a commercial product. Exactly it's target. (Hence the reason they are being given away to that audience.)
I'm just not sure we should rebuild another entire city based on this "months" favorite new design.
I'm seeing the same thing in the recent "retro" thread. Why don't we get behind existing efforts and help push them forward? (HIVE) Running in twenty directions at once is something we seem to excel at here.
OBC
I expect OBC is too busy maintaining his complete unofficial domination of all things UPE that he doesn't have time to force a standard on others.
For Arduino slaying you need something that is cheap, flexible, and easy to use both out of the box and as a permanent component of a hardware project. A number of people here have taken their own stabs at that market, but you also have to be able to get your product out in front of people and realize economies of scale, which are hard to do if you're a garage based startup. Parallax itself is obviously in the best position to do this.
And that's exactly where QuickStart seems to be aimed. I take one look at that thing and start thinking of shields that could be built for it. It has plenty of free pins but enough built-in functionality to get you into Propeller programming. And it's cheaper than a bare Propeller chip was when Parallax started making them. If you want to tap into a potentially Arduino-esque market for standardized expansion hardware, I think that QuickStart is now your target.
The Darwin's Finches-like proliferation of Propeller boards isn't really a bad thing; it highlights the immense flexibility of the Propeller itself. Despite the wide array of existing boards as soon as I started using Propellers in more than an occasional work application, I drew up a list of the functions I wanted most and got my company to hire one of our forum regulars to build it for us. The Prop is too capable to be locked into a standard form factor or I/O collection. But a more painless standard intro product has been needed, and far from being yet another stab in a random direction I really think QuickStart has the potential to be the very thing you're complaining doesn't exist.
With all due respect, you keep bringing this up every few weeks/months.
I am afraid I totally disagree with you, as even your oft-mentioned Arduino has a number of different (Mega, nano etc) varieties, not to mention just using that bootloader on any Atmel chip.
I standardized on the Protoboard 10 pin header format about three years ago due to my belief that it is the most prevelant platform. I regularly suggest that others adopt it, but people are of course free to adopt whatever pinout they want.
I also adopted the Propeller Plug header, adding just 3.3V as an extra pin so that I can power SerPlug, 485Plug and other future Plugs. It is still 100% compatible with PropPlug.
For I2C, I posted my 4-pin I2C interface, and encouraged others to adopt it.
A few weeks ago you suggested everyone adopt the C3... now QuickStart. Please let the market decide!
As I've posted to you before, the place to standardize is at the object interface level.
All objects that need access to Propeller pins should pass the pins in their start method. Just like VGA&TV pass the base pin, mouse&kb pass the clock and data pins, SD drivers pass /CS,CLK,MISO,MOSI.
Different designs require different hardware interfaces - this is NOT the PC world with its straight jacket.
Now the nice thing about the Propeller is there a good list of things it can do fairly well which is standardized. The propeller can handle SD cards, video, vga, waveform audio, FM audio, keyboard input, mouse input, etc. Because of the 32K of memory you can also mix and match these items as well.
Even though there are a lot of variances in the boards, most of the boards have a lot of connectors in common, the only difference is that they may be on different pins. I think as programmers if we want to really maximize the Propeller, we need to make our programs easy to adapt to other boards. Maybe include documentation pointing out where to change what values for different functions so they can be moved across setups easily. Because unless the market chooses a single type of propeller board as a preference, this will be the best way to go.
I didn't create the standard for the Propeller Platform, Jon did.. It's interesting that he and I are in agreeable disagreement being he is the originator of the product design. I certainly respect his position and understand why.
At the same time, where does it end? After we've created 50 variations? 100, 200?
A hobbiest who is migrating from a PEkit, or Quickstart board will have their head spinning (pun intended) to determine which path to take next.
OBC
There are boards that come close, but miss the target. Example is the Demo Board. I like it (a lot), but it's not a BOE. It has connectors to demo the special functionality of the Propeller, but these have little use to first timers. I count one or two boards that are designed with servos in mind -- that is, they have headers for them -- but this requires soldering, and doesn't come with the protoboard on it. That's not ideal for schools, which (greatly) prefer not to have to solder things.
Having a BOE-Bot robotics book equivalent to the one for the BS2, would I think, double sales of the Propeller to the hobbyist market. I'm biased, of course, but robotics has long been a leveraging use of the technology. It gets people in the door.
As far as the Arduino being the new rock star, that's what happens. The BS2 rode the same wave for many years. Given the right mix of things, stardom could come to the Propeller, as it has to the Arduino.
Parallax is working on a Propeller based BOE board... see http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?127226
There is a Propeller board for the BOE already :-) see http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?131348
I tend to agree with you, but I use my Demo Board quite frequently (even though I have a PDB, and many other prop boards) because it is tiny, and still gives me some I/O's.
I agree.
This is more of a marketing issue than a design issue. There are a half dozen "official" Arduino reference designs, with one core design, yet there are MANY more Arduino-like off-shoots provided by third parties, and there doesn't seem to be consternation over this. Boards like the Romeo or the several flavors of Bluetooth-equipped designs simply add to the mix.
If it chooses, Parallax can concentrate its marketing attention to a couple of primary designs. Having the others doesn't detract, as long as the differences are well noted. A cross-reference chart somewhere (like the one for XBee) wouldn't hurt.
Some very basic, low level, standardization of sorts between the variety of boards would allow folks to easily interconnect to existing projects translating to benefits to the entire community each time a stride forward is taken.
It's not restrictive. Having some consensus around the ways that we are currently using existing peripheral devices have permitted a good deal of forward momentum. I'm suggesting that it would benefit the hobby community to look at Propeller boards the same way.
OBC
Know about the first, but the second one is not BOE-equivalent. (Though it is very compelling). It really does need that proto area. It also needs to be much simpler. Four servo headers, no H bridge.
The Arduino looks (and is) simple. The BOE is not a throwback because it lacks features. It was, and still is, a perfect design for its target audience.
I've never forgotten when I was working on a Macintosh book back in late 1983, and I unpacked the Mac Apple had sent to me. Just by looking at it, my three year old daughter proclaimed, "Neat! A computer for me."
More like that.
-- Gordon
While Atmel is thrilled to see their chip being used in the Arduino, they aren't the producer of that development format (they have their Butterfly and such) - Arduino.cc and the various clone producers are the winners in the Arduino craze. At the hobbyist level, the various Prop board producers are riding the Prop version of the Arduino wave and as hobbyists, we pick and choose among those talented folks as we see fit for the project we are working on or the curious bug that has hold of us at the present. Variety and choice is a wonderful thing in the hobby world. A standard for a hobbyist board? I don't think so.
A standard for retro computing?? I don't think it's possible just due to the nature of the beast....what is retro computing that anyone can build a standard around? A 6502 dressed as a Comodore, Atari, Apple, Ohio Scientific? An 8080 or 8085 or Z80 running C/PM? An RCA1802 with hex pad and 8 digit displays? A 6800? 6809? 68000? Maybe a Timex Sinclair? What was the sound chip standard for those retro computers, anyway? There wasn't a standard then (may all those wonderful machines rest in peace), why/how can there be a standard now? The choice back then is what made it interesting and got most of us into this crazy life.
Parallax is an amazing company in how they embrace the hobbyist and provide some truly wonderful ways to learn about and use their products and I believe they will continue to show a strong commitment to us hobbyists (and smaller scale developers). I expect Parallax Semiconducter to have similar success with their commercial ventures because of their roots and history.
As consumers, we want diversity, choice and freedom of creativity - the hobbyist marketplace will determine the standards and the small companies will come and go to fill that niche. I don't want to pick one Propeller platform just like I don't want to pick one kind of appel to eat. Yes, there are Red Delicious everywhere but sometimes, that's just the wrong apple for the job!
Perhaps, I rambled........
Rick
- I will be showing ~20 modules for the 10 pin standard at UPEW, which are in production ie will be available from me immediately after UPEW (there will be some PCB's at UPEW)
- I have already made a ppBridge for the Propeller Platform that allows it to use my 10 pin modules, see http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?131321
- I should receive my c3Bridge PCB's this week
- I already told Ken that I will make a qsBridge for the QuickStart
- I am sending off boeBridge for production today (assuming no significant problems today)
As a matter of fact, I intend to make a **Bridge for EVERY major board Parallax introduces; and **Bridge boards will have a nice prototype area, and allow using my (and others) 10-pin modules that fit the Proto Board pinout (3V3,GND,Px0,Px1,Px2,Px3,Px4,Px5,Px6,Px7)
I was not going to announce c3Bridge, qsBridge, boeBridge until UPEW, but this thread made me do it.
The standards should be at the configurable object level, and a few I/O standards (such as 10 pin modules). Anything more is far too restrictive and results in no innovation.
I sent the second link because of you writing "and an option to select a Prop board for the BOE-Bot" - which did not specify that it had to be a BOE clone
There are many interesting simple prototyping boards, and mroe coming all the time
What is nice about all the selection is that there are many possibilities to choose from.
I agree - the early Mac's were amazing.
@Bill,
A multitude of required bridges brings out my point exactly. Efforts to be compatible with all of the existing pin standards (with more on the way) was creative time burned.. If we centered on one, or two, this wouldn't be necessary.
I apologize for raising your ire with this thread and forcing your early reveal...
OBC
So you know, I *love* your board and look forward to seeing it at UPEW. I think it's a great option for those of us who need to build things like hexapods, or operate small DC motors. No shields necessary, which I like.
I understand Parallax's needs for their version of the PropBOE, and I accept it as the reference design for that application. They need something standardized for the education kit, which serves many purposes. MattG and I have talked about this product and the indepth documentation being developed for it, and my comments there were a nod to the Propeller going in that direction.
My perspective is a little different than most. While I'm not championing it, a simplified version would be easier to write about in magazines in books. It takes time and space to detail what the VGA output, microphone, and microSD connectors are for, and when I'm addressing first-time robotics users (especially students) all this other stuff gets in the way. I hate writing "beyond the scope of this book/article" and it's just so much easier when these features aren't there to begin with.
I have a hard time getting this across, but this "for starters" simplicity is central to the Arduino's popularity. The one weird thing on the board, the ICSP, is not hard to explain away. Everything else is part of the first-time discussion, and people come away with a feeling they understand the board.
Now, contrast this with the PropBOE, as beautilicious as it is. It'll take 2-4 times to detail all the do-dads, and likely some will have to be "beyond the scope." Some readers will be left with a feeling of being less than fully informed.
There's probably limited business reason to do a "PropBOE-Mini," but what I mention above is one of the reasons the Arduino is being treated as the Justin Bieber of microcontrollers. It's easy to write about.
I understand what you would like, however I think you are missing the importance majority opinion.
It would kill innovation to try to "force" a standard, which in turn might kill the Propeller.
We definitely could use some standards at the software level though!
Parallax's (and others) changes in connectors was driven by other design constraints, or marketing reasons. Here are some examples:
- For the QuickStart, they wanted something small with the connector on one side - thus the 20x2 connector. Makes sense.
- Jon designed the Propeller Platform headers the way he did because it closely resembles the Arduino way, to make it familiar to people. Makes sense.
- Andre presumably wanted the 16x2 on C3 because of P0-P7, and P16-23 being usable for expansion, and he fit the other signals on the other side. Makes sense.
- A few people use the demo board pinout for 10 pin connectors, with Vcc and GND surrounding 8 prop pins - the only reason I can see for this is to be able to plug into the Demo board.
- ucontroller.com kept the 10 pins from the Proto board, and added a second row of pins - but the first row is still 10 pin compatible.
- Of my (many) boards, the only one that does not use the 10 pin standards for prop pins is PropCade - because it uses every single propeller pin to provide a nice retro platform. The "joystick" ports DB9's can however be replaced with 10 pin connectors. Makes sense.
- jazzed SpinSocket will be available at UPEW, designed as a DIP chip module compatible with many platforms. Makes sense.
If there was a "LAW" for "standardized pinouts" the products above would not have been possible!
Regarding the creative time burned for bridges - the inventory cost is more significant, and it is outweighed by allowing other platforms to use the modules.
To me that was an easy decision because Propeller Platform has momentum. It's the only third-party Propeller product that I know of listed in Mouser.com. Not paying attention to that is like sleeping on a railroad track.
The SpinSocket Platform "score and breakaway tab" allows Propeller Platform compatibility and also makes it possible to be used with an off the shelf ABS enclosure which is easy to hack.
SpinSocket modules are designed for people who want a small stamp like board that will run on power provided by a battery well below the Propeller 2.7VDC minimum (1.2 to 5.5VDC), the Propeller Platform 5V, or a wall-wart.
I agree it would be nice to have a one-size-fits-all solution. Unfortunately that hardly ever exists.
Getting software to be easily adaptable to hardware as suggested is probably best. Someone should write a GUI plug-in for making a pin configuration file. There was a designer program posted here that might allow this ....
It does seem that the number of designers trying to enjoy part of this pie fragments things.
But that is part of that "invisible hand" idea posed by Adam Smith some 240 years ago. While I don't believe 100% unfettered capitalism is necessarily a good idea for everyone (reference sub-prime real-estate debacle and many other business cycle disruptions - which serve as kind of a financial evolution dumpster), it has brought about one of the greatest economic miracles in history (and some environmental problems that we fortunately have the resources to fix).
Thank you! I am really looking forward to show it at UPEW... and I am bringing a couple of bots equipped with it. Those were my design goals
I think PropBOE is an excellent idea, and a natural upgrade for those schools currently using BOE. I will enjoy playing with it!
You would have liked my earlier Propteus then - it was very minimalist. See the "Propteus" link in my sig. The new version is significantly more complex, yet it can be built to be just as simple if parts are left off.
Good point.
I understand.
Parallax said they might do a "Propeller HomeWork Board" which would be a feature-stripped PropBoe, that would be more like what you are looking for.
Thanks for correcting your grammar.