Microchip launches first 32-bit Arduino compatible development platform
tdlivings
Posts: 437
Looks like Microchip put their chip on an Arduino platform and modified the Arduino IDE.
With all the discussion on new IDE's and compilers for Prop 2 and 1 this is an interesting
approach to doing it.
I have not read all the info on the web site but a Parallax Prop 2 or 1 board and modifiy the
Ardunio IDE is an interesting concept. Another approach or parallel solution
Posted here for discussion and others may be interested and it is an IDE idea which is
heavily discussed in propeller forum
Tom
From Elector Newsletter the links
http://www.microchip.com/get/TDD2
http://www.microchip.com/get/D268
With all the discussion on new IDE's and compilers for Prop 2 and 1 this is an interesting
approach to doing it.
I have not read all the info on the web site but a Parallax Prop 2 or 1 board and modifiy the
Ardunio IDE is an interesting concept. Another approach or parallel solution
Posted here for discussion and others may be interested and it is an IDE idea which is
heavily discussed in propeller forum
Tom
From Elector Newsletter the links
http://www.microchip.com/get/TDD2
http://www.microchip.com/get/D268
Comments
It was actually developed by Digilent with assistance from Microchip, and is being sold by both Microchip and Digilent. I've ordered one from Microchip (free shipping!) and should get it in a few days.
The Propeller ASC coupled with either Catalina or a C++ like language that compiles to Spin byte codes could compete.
However, I'm still waiting for the developers to come out with the final codes and libraries for the USB Host Shield (that one is still halfway through), and the libraries for Debug Bridge so that I can communicate with my smartphone easily.
The bad thing for me is, my smartphone isn't Android 2.3.4 - it's a common 2.2. The accessory kit not gonna work with it. Had to stick to the Debug Bridge until those stuff settled.
what exactly do you mean this is an incredible good idea?
Modifiying the existing Arduino-IDE?
seems like arduino is ahead in the popularity-race. Can we (the propeller-community)
"put more horsepower under the hood" to catch up?
Is anybody here familiar with the arduino and can estimate the similarities and differences between
the propellertool and the arduino IDE?
If I should give a five sentence description of the propeller I would say
Install USBdriver and propeller-IDE connect your propellerboard and download a demo-program
Say what kind of internal hardware you need (UART, SPI, I2C, TV, VGA)
what kind of external hardware you need (encoder, ethernet)
Choose the suitable objects from the obex glue them together and your project is up and running.
Now how would a five-sentence description of an arduino-board look like?
best regards
Stefan
a mouse click away from putting it here in discussion.
@Leon
Do you know if Microchip payed money to have the IDE modified or is it an open source IDE that they modified.
@Martin
I was not looking at a direct compete with pic32 but the concept of modifing an IDE instead of developing a new one
or doing both. Compatibility with existing Arduino shields is something that a Propeller would be able to do some and not
others.
Tom
Still, there's no point living in the shadow of the Arduino. Let's see how well Digilent and Microchip can follow through with projects, libraries, code, and most of all, the user community.
-- Gordon
Digilent developed the IDE. I've tried it and It is the Arduino IDE as far as the user is concerned. I only tried one of the example sketches (which look the same as those for the Arduino) and it compiled OK.
Now is this bad news for Parallax and the Propeller? I'm not in marketing so I don't know. I do know that Parallax sensors are popular with Arduino users, and the BOEBot is quite popular. While the Prop IDE and Arduino IDE are similar concepts, you can't cross seamlessly between them. I ignored the Propeller Chip until fairly recently, not because I had anything against it. But Spin struck me as an odd duck of a language in a C syntax world. What got me interested was doing a project which could benefit from multiple hardware threads.
I don't see the point of existence of these boards unless they implement a complete system or at least something more complete than just micro with a bunch of pin headers.
The Arduino is originally not even meant for advanced electronics designers at the first place.
I thought it might be useful to mention my experience at a two day Arduino workshop (Howduino Newcastle) I attended last year.
Of the 33 people there, I would say a third were "technical" (~4 electronics/electrical, ~6 software/IT) and the rest as Leon has mentioned were "non-technical" art and media guys and girls, mainly students and a few educators and professional artists.
To satisfy my curiousity, I think I would try FFT or IFFT inside. Too bad it doesn't have onboard DAC inside.
Sorry, I still don't understand. What was the programming language for the Arduino? Wasn't it C? So I assume those "non-technical" guys and artists have difficulties to understand hardware but otherwise are happy with a product requiring writing of embedded C code???
Take a look at the "blink an LED" program: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Blink
The IDE takes the program, and wraps it in whatever is needed to get it to compile with GCC (or maybe G++ ?), sets whatever registers need to be set, etc.
Of course, the Arduino module is just a carrier board for the micro, so other tools are available, such as the AVRISP mkII + AVR Studio. In that case, the programmer needs to understand what to do without the hand holding.
The user doesn't write standard C programs, this is a typical "sketch":
/* Blink Turns on an LED on for one second, then off for one second, repeatedly. This example code is in the public domain. */ void setup() { // initialize the digital pin as an output. // Pin 13 has an LED connected on most Arduino boards: pinMode(13, OUTPUT); } void loop() { digitalWrite(13, HIGH); // set the LED on delay(1000); // wait for a second digitalWrite(13, LOW); // set the LED off delay(1000); // wait for a second }In fact the Arduino uses C++.
The supplied IDE hides you from some ugly details like "int main (int argc, char* argv[])"
There are some features of C++ missing:
1) delete and new - because there is no space for a memory allocator on such a small
device.
2) standard C++ classes and templates - probably because there is no space for all that.
3) Exceptions - For space and execution time reasons and because no one like them anyway:)
That is also how I see Parallax having a C or C++ syntax for the Prop and Prop II for the same reasons.
I am not saying you go as far as Arduino with the sheilds and IDE hiding all the register details as the OBEX
does that in a similar way. I also think from being in the educational market you want the concept of taking a
datasheet for a device and writing a driver for it to still be there.
I think that the Uno32 is the first one that uses the Arduino IDE, and it has the highest performance.
It's been available for a couple of weeks, when were your ASCs first shipped?
The Uno32 is the cheapest, I paid £17.17 including shipping. That's less than I paid for the standard Uno.
Who cares?
Arduino is all about open source design right.