Alpha Test Package Available

jazzed

Hi All.

We've been preparing another test package. There have been a few small holdups.

Here's a preliminary list of things we intend to have in the test package:

1. SD Card XMMC allows running programs from SD Card.
2. Full C++ support. Use what you need.
3. More hardware boot configurations.
4. Demo of pthreads running N threads on all COGs with non-preemtive multiprocessing.
5. Term demo allows using TV,VGA,or Serial port with obj.str, obj.hex, etc....
6. Smaller 32bit double library support (64bit still default).
7. Build and load small main programs for COG mode, other improvements, and bug fixes.
8. Licensing files and information.
9. Windows support without Cygwin.
10. Various Alpha tester demos (Ariba, blittled, Heater, Kevin Wood, Mindrobots, Rienhart, others).

Updates to list (Nov 25th)

1. Auto-detect and use first port with propeller-load
2. Console input/output LF/CR fixes for PST
3. Add ASC to propeller-load.cfg
4. User contributions in demos/forumists/<username>
5. CLKMODE/clkset bug fix
6. More library support for ANSI C99

Let me know if I've missed anything. Corrections or amplifications appreciated.

Current documentation is on propgcc.googlecode.com.
We will upload user docs and tutorials with permission from contributors to
http://code.google.com/p/propgcc/downloads/list

Other notes:

1. GDB work has restarted.
2. Eric is assuming team leadership while I take time away.
3. Parallax is still looking for an Eclipse developer.

If all goes well we can have another test package posted tomorrow.

Thanks,
--Steve

mindrobots

Cool! Nothing to be more thankful for (in the Propeller world) than a new Alpha release!!

You have my permission to use anything I've contributed as either how-to's or how-not-to's!

blittled

I'm looking forward to this release. A big thank you to the PropGCC team for all their work!

Capt. Quirk

Regarding an Eclipse Developer, is Xtext an alternative? They wrote a plugin, and manuals to
develop Eclipse "domain specific language" plugins. I understood that to mean eclipse plugins for
languages like Spin. If that's true, it would also help with C\C++?

The Xtext plugin is free, but they make their money as consultants.

Reinhard

mindrobots wrote: »

Cool! Nothing to be more thankful for (in the Propeller world) than a new Alpha release!!

You have my permission to use anything I've contributed as either how-to's or how-not-to's!

for me, the same !

Batang

Hi jazzed,

Is the decision to use Eclipse as the IDE set in stone?

jazzed

Batang wrote: »

Hi jazzed,

Is the decision to use Eclipse as the IDE set in stone?

I'm not sure. Eclipse has many great benefits.

There may be room for something cross-platform that is very simple ...
... especially if it gets posted in the Alpha forum for evaluation

Yoda

I am not sure that is necessary. I think the goal was to handle linking with the right modules and the console. I think part of this can be satisfied by defining runtime targets in eclipse but I have not had time to explore. Xtext would be overkill for that and is not ver easy to learn.

Capt. Quirk wrote: »

Regarding an Eclipse Developer, is Xtext an alternative? They wrote a plugin, and manuals to
develop Eclipse "domain specific language" plugins. I understood that to mean eclipse plugins for
languages like Spin. If that's true, it would also help with C\C++?

The Xtext plugin is free, but they make their money as consultants.

Batang

Hi jazzed,

Perhaps there should be a list of the benefits for using Eclipse.

However Eclipse is a beast in many respects.

Just recently I setup (for someone else) GCC ARM using the Codelite IDE and it was quite painless.

I think Codlite deserves a look as it is modern, maintained, cross platform, open source and uncomplicated.

Cheers.

http://www.codelite.org/

jazzed

The latest Windows Alpha test package v0_1_9 has been posted to Google Code at:
http://code.google.com/p/propgcc/downloads/list

Packages for other O/S will follow soon.
Some key features in addition to the list in the top post of the thread are:

Cygwin and Cygwin files not needed.
Propeller-GCC tools were built with Msys/Mingw and do not need .dlls, etc...
The package provides a GPLv3'd make utility (uses 2 dlls) and an rm tool.
All sources are available on the web site for make and rm.

Full C++ Support
The package includes full C++ support - it is 105MB zipped for Windows.
Using the full C++ library will likely require XMMC (code only in external memory) or XMM builds.
Several C++ demos do of course show the usefulness and SPIN-likeness of the C++ language in LMM mode.

Run programs from SD Card.
Yes, you can save your program to SD card from your PC and boot Propeller with it.
Just one file will work this way AUTORUN.PEX. Other files can live on the SD card as data only.

Auto-detect and COM ports
The first port found when propeller-load runs (and -p not used) will be loaded/run.

User Contributions
All user demos that I know of are in the package. Tutorials have been posted in the downloads area.
We appreciate all efforts from you. If there are issues with any demos or tutorials, please speak up.

License compliance is still under review from legal council.
As far as we know we are compliant. The LICENSE.txt file does need work as it only refers to and
contains GPLv3 text as of now. Other licensed code is in use and reference language needs to be
confirmed. All copies of BSTC are distributed in accordance to an agreement with BradC. Our intent
was, is, and always will be to have license compliant test packages and general availability packages.

Addpath.bat replaced by PropGCC.bat
Now you can double-click on PropGCC.bat from your windows file explorer to start a
Propeller-GCC ready command window.