PropBASIC....What am I missing?

Mickster · 2012-01-07 09:04

I haven't delved in to programming the Prop yet although I have a demo board and the now out-of-production Robot Controller board.
But reading the forum on pretty much a daily basis, I see a lot of mention of Catalina or PropForth, etc., as a speedier alternative to Spin and very little mention of PropBASIC.

As I see it, PropBASIC is simply a high-level assembly code generator with a familiar (to me) syntax that I find even friendlier than Spin. Is it just me or is this great alternative being treated like the poor relation?

Cheers!

Mickster

Kevin Wood · 2012-01-07 21:27

No, it's not really a poor relation. People here just have different interests, that's all. That said, Bean is also the developer of the SX/B compiler, and PropBASIC could reasonably be considered a port of SX/B to the Propeller. So PropBASIC has a bit of a pedigree, it works well enough, and the developer is fairly accessible here or via his own commercial ventures. So you aren't off in left field for using it.

Dr_Acula · 2012-01-07 22:35

I believe Propbasic has a lot of potential. One 'catch' is the code size which I believe is limited to 2k in size. However, in this thread http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?119775-Proposed-method-of-LMM-for-PropBASIC.-Comments-requested. I think the size of programs increases to 32k.

Spin is also limited to 32k. The various versions of C can break out of the 32k memory space of a propeller chip and go as high as you like.

I believe the programs that can go to 512k or 32Mb etc use XMM where pasm instructions are read into a cog from external memory and then executed. The assembly instructions thus just need a few extra instructions to handle jumps and calls to a larger memory space.

I have pondered from time to time the possibility of PropBasic running in XMM.

The 'direct compilation to assembly' feature of Propbasic does give it some very nice speed advantages.

Bean · 2012-01-08 09:06

Mickster,
PropBasic does convert BASIC code into propeller assembly.
It is limited to 2K in "native" code. But by simply putting "LMM" on the "PROGRAM label" line, PropBasic will generate LMM code allowing 32K of code.
I haven't been very active on here lately, my job requires smaller processors than the Propeller (SOT23 size), so I have been working with them lately.

Bean