Can you say NOOB?
KC9RXB
Posts: 15
hello,
A while back i purchased a propeller demo board thinking it would be a walk in the park like the basic stamp. I was unfortunately mistaken.. any idea on where i should begin??
Thanks for the help,
Miles
A while back i purchased a propeller demo board thinking it would be a walk in the park like the basic stamp. I was unfortunately mistaken.. any idea on where i should begin??
Thanks for the help,
Miles
Comments
For people familiar with the Basic Stamp, there's also the BS2 Functions object which provides most of the functionality of PBasic in the form of subroutine and function calls.
that is totally free and created by Bean, one of the more knowledgeable
forum members here. It is a compiler that creates PASM code and that
also makes it useful for anyone wanting to learn PASM.
Mike's own FemtoBasic is an interpreter and also very good work.
SPIN is the native interpreter built into the Prop.
Chip Gracey the designer of the Prop created this
interpreter and it fits into just 2k and that's pretty amazing!
Forum member Harprit has a nice book about SPIN
programming aimed at beginners....give it a look :-)
I bought a Propeller chip since the program I wrote for my little robot went beyond the capabilities of the Basic Stamp 2P I had. So it was either use external circuitry to do what I needed it to do with the Stamp 2P or find another processor.
I chose not to go down the path of a Basic compiler or interpeter for the Prop. I just taught myself SPIN. I have downloaded objects made by other people and ripped them apart to understand their logic. My 74c922 and the 74c92x objects were the first things I wrote with SPIN. I first wrote it in PBasic first and tested it on the Stamp 2P, then designed it with SPIN.
My experience in computer languages is very basic (pun intended), with only BASIC and a smattering of REXX.
Give SPIN a spin.....
welcome to the propeller-forum!
The members in this forum are really friendly and patient even with the
most basic questions. I often think the propeller-chip is a microcontroller
that is attractive to people that are very open-minded and therefore patient.
Please do the "medium-neewbees" a big favor and ask really basic questions that can be answered by "medium-newbees".
If you look through the threads of this forum you will find basic questions
and high advanced questions and threads. So this is a place for everyone.
From beginners learning how to code for the first time up to assembler-tweaking-freakin-freaks doing things that make the brains of other assembler-tweaking-freaks SPIN in twisted-circles ;-)
Parallax and the members of this forum always like to improve the
"feel-at-home-factor" as much as possible.
You wil NEVER get a "RTFM" (read that f... manual) as an answer.
You will get good will and direct help or a detailed hints WHERE in the manual more detailed information can be found.
So just start a new thread with a 3-20 lines description what you want to do and how far you did come and a question. In most cases it is good to add your code as attachment.
If others can see that you have tried even a little bit on your own and now have questions you will get answers.
Start using the mentioned sources and come back as soon as you have a question.
keep the questions coming
best regards
Stefan
Miles - I worked with Stamps for a while, and a few years ago picked up a Prop Protoboard when it was the "Daily Deal", then sat on it for well over a year because it seemed so daunting. I finally worked my way through some of the Education Kit tutorials, and inside of a week moved to the point of being able to use the thing. I second Mike's suggestion that you start there. There isn't anything particularly complicated about using Spin, in my opinion, and I'd stick with that language for the time being at least. Once you figure out how to output text to the screen (through the Parallax Serial Terminal), the rest of learning is really not very different from what you did to learn PBASIC. Being able to generate output was the big hurdle for me. Of course the Demo Board has VGA and standard TV output as well, and you might prefer to go that direction.
I've always said that with the Prop it's harder to do the easy stuff, but MUCH easier to do the hard stuff. For example, the day you learn to output text to a screen you could also be reading and using mouse position. That would be a very different experience on a Stamp board.
This is good advice. I started with the BASIC Stamp 1. When I got really good at it the BASIC Stamp 2 came out with a slightly different variant of PBASIC. It was an adjustment, but worth the effort for the new power. The same holds true for the Propeller. Spin is a little different, but once you get past that "Aha!" moment you will find yourself being very very productive in ways you might not have imagined before. The key, of course, is learning to think in terms of parallel processes (multiple cogs running at the same time) instead of the linear path we're all used to with the BASIC Stamp.
There are a lot of us here with BASIC Stamp pedigrees; we can help you get over the hump.
[ Edit ] Sometimes a template program is enough to get a newcomer over the hump. PBASIC has things like PAUSE, and HIGH/LOW, and SEROUT/SERIN built in -- these aren't found in Spin. I've attached a template that I use that includes methods to replace what we're used to in PBASIC, and starts a serial object that can be used for sending information to the screen. This will give you the tools to create a "blinky light" Hello, World! type program.
The OBEX object exchange contains programs in spin and other languages written by other members that are yours to use rip apart and learn from and you will find a long list of modules (including the Parallax serial terminal) in the library folder of the propeller directory.
And for what it is worth I agree with starting with spin and it is not at all difficult to learn.
I agree, of course, but it's worth pointing out to OP that you don't HAVE to have parallel processes going while you're learning Spin. You can learn about the language syntax (most importantly, how to use the objects that others have written) while writing programs that are purely serial, using just a single cog, again, like you would in PBASIC. Of course much of the attraction of the Prop is the ability to do parallel processes, but the extensive Object library (the OBEX that Ray mentions) is an incredibly helpful and powerful feature as well. The Prop would be a great chip even if it didn't have parallel processes, simply because that library makes it SO easy to do things that should be complicated.
Thanks,
Miles KC9RXB
does the sound come really from the demoboard itself?
uhm - Now that sounds like much too big currents are floating.
Did you install the latest FTDI-driver?
Does the propellertool recognise the virtual comport?
Please provide more information about your situation
best regards
Stefan
Glad it's working for you now.
What the blinky LED taught me about Spin... Indentation matters!