Not in a commercial environment IMO. Too many limitations, both hardware and software, as I'm finding out the hard way. My predecessor would have been much better off using a ARM7 or similar.
Great for hobby projects though. Me? I'm hoping Prop2 solves some of the major limitations for commercial use.
With what the specs of the Propeller 2 look like so far, I think the issue will be definatley attended. Maybe not fixed, but still good. I like your signature by the way.
Hello Ross - yes, I can confirm that there will be a Parallax-supported Spin compiler available for the Propeller 2 which can be downloaded into the chip. In the same way a C kernal could also be downloaded at the time of programming. It's not going to be built into ROM.
We haven't decided at this stage whether or not the Propeller 2 tools will use our Eclipse front-end or not.
Please use a mechanical keyboard to post, or at least proofread before you post. DamnYouAutoCorrect is an amusing website, but it's more annoying than anything here.
My bad. I was lucky enough to get this iPad in the first place so asking the school to give me a keyboard is far fetched. But i will proof read from now on.
I... if you brought the clock up to say 1.8gHz and boosted the ram to 50mb then it could easily enter the market as a micro computer....
But that's not what this is. For example, you could use an 18 wheel deisel truck as a personal airplane, it you only change the chassis, and engine, and fuel, and add wing & control surfaces and instrumentation, etc; but at some point it stops being one thing and becomes another. Start with what is closest to what you really want, and work from there.
The prop is designed to be a micro-control, it is NOT designed to be a workstation. Although if we use something like propforth we can make it do some set of workstation things and pretend it is similar enough to use in a workstation like manner in some limited set of conditions. But most folks that think "workstation" envision the entire set of workstation capabilities, the prop is not designed to provide these, and much clever work is required to move in this direction.
Remember, use the right tool for the right job. If you want a workstation, use a workstation; if you want a really powerful general purpose microcontroller, the prop can be a good choise.
Yeah, you guys are right. Thinking about, the only thing I would with the propeller really is make a workstation design to simplify robotics anyways. You make a good point and I realize that now. Also after reading bout the mHz myth, I know the clock speed doesn't make the difference I would need.
What I meant to say is, even if the specs are increased like that, the propeller would still be a micro controller, and the comparison between that and CPU isn't really fair.
But your analogy wouldn't exactly be fair either. I didn't go out and say a 555 could work as a CPU. I'm saying that the propeller micro controller could have some usefulness as a low end basic CPU. You can't only compare it to a micro controller, as most don't have video generating hardware. And you're comparing a truck to a plane, a more accurate comparison would be say a fighter jet to a passenger airliner. They can both fly, but are made for different purposes, but i do understand the point you get across.
Hello Everyone,
After reading this thread, I came to one conclusion ........
I don't think that the Prop 1 chips potential has been fully realized yet !!
I may be out in left field but I think that there may be an opportunity to do something outstanding ! Why not take SPIN and make it a true symbolic language ? Not just something like MS Visual Basic, but a truely fundamental building block/modular interface ! Somthing like...... I want to have a pin on the chip send a pulse @ 60hz . You would grab a let's call it a (Action Block) from a menu and place it on the work window field. On the main field there is a diagram of the Prop chip. You place your command " Pulse 60hz" into the Action block and draw a line from the action block to pin 6 for instance. So this symbolic approach would be something like a electronics circuit simulator, where you can watch your programming in real time ! Or slow it down so you can follow every action like watching flow chart as it goes thru every step !
Everyone, young and old can program at this point !!
So..... why not put the SPIN on SYMBOLS, you already have some of them in your video characters and fonts ??
There are plenty of great programmers on here all they need is direction from you guys and gals at PARALLAX !!!
An even better idea! Program the propeller to be at the heart of a virtual Breadboard! That way you could easily creat circuits and even use the propeller itself to test out prototypes before you make them to ensure they work. I know this may defeat the purpose of a Breadboard, but think about. There have been so many times I've wanted to just build a circuit I thought would be cool, but I didn't have the on hand parts. Plus it could provide extra testing so you could makes circuits with less and less error.
Not in a commercial environment IMO. Too many limitations, both hardware and software, as I'm finding out the hard way.
As someone who's been in the embedded industry for almost 30 years, I can say you are quite correct. The Propeller is a novel and powerful architecture, but it's just not very well suited to embedded development in today's commercial world.
Some of the issues are, as you say, hardware and software limitations. There's no hardware debug capability, such as JTAG, for one. Even the smallest PIC and AVR microcontrollers have this capability and the Propeller's lack thereof is a glaring omission to an embedded engineer reading a datasheet. There are debug tools, but none of them really well integrated with the development environment, and most of them are invasive (need to modify existing code to use them).
Language support is another. The embedded community is overwhelmingly C oriented. All other languages are insignificant noise in the statistics. The Propeller didn't have C support at first, and even now the support is very limited and not very well integrated. Porting large code bases to the Propeller would be very difficult given its limitations.
I'm hoping that the PropII adequately addresses these issues, but some of the things mentioned above seem to not be possible given what we know of the architecture (e.g. the 2K limit on cog RAM).
I don't know what Parallax's plans are for the PropII, but if they hope to compete in the general embedded market, they'll have some stiff competition, who themselves are not standing still. Various ARM vendors are pushing forward with microcontrollers such as the LPC43xx series, which has a 204 MHz Cortex-M4 and a 204 MHz Cortex-M0 on the same die, along with 1 MB of FLASH and 264KB of RAM, a floating point unit, DSP and SIMD instructions, and a slew of peripherals, including state-driven timers, USB, Ethernet, etc., all for around ten bucks.
Wow. That's intense. But I think from what Ken Gracey said, yes this should be addressed. I understand the whole C thing, I don't know a computer on the market today that doesn't use it. True, this is stiff competition for them, but I cannot completely agree with and understand all this. I just started usingnthe chip, and I do respect the fact that are in the embbed industry for so long,mandate your opinion is great a help. I think this is how propeller can get better, with them listening to what we thinknis wrong with it right now, but at the same time what to keep doing right.
*Originally Posted by RossH *
I'm just a bit concerned that Parallax may once again be heading down the path of providing only a single (and in this case somewhat impenetrable) development platform - just one that is based around C++ instead of Spin. I'd rather they concentrated on providing the basic "enabling" components, tools and technologies that would encourage people to use the chips using any languages and tools they liked.
Ross.
Ross, no need to worry. So much progress has been made in the development tools lately. We won't be providing a single tool, but will simply be adding C to the choices available to our customers. And as you requested, the recent conversion of the X86 compiler to C/C++ http://code.google.com/p/open-source...i/CurrentState is also a step in the direction of providing the basic "enabling" components. This is a long-term project and results don't come too fast.
The open-sourcing isn't a ticket for us to get out of development tools, as you know. But we get to add the open-source ability for free, so why not. . .*
Ken Gracey
*Originally Posted by Cluso99 *
Parallax should have released the source of PropTool (less the bits they cannot share due to licencing). That would have sped up the development of homespun and bst, allowing both Michael and Brad to concentrate on adding more features. Parallax still has not released anything here, although I guess anyone now requiring it could ask directly. This has held back prop development enormously.
Cluso99, thank you for the message. There is no reason we couldn't release the whole source, less the licensed part. It's always been our opinion that it wouldn't be that useful. It took a year to convert the compiler from X86 to C/C++ and now that this project is complete it makes more sense. Chip and I discussed a release without it on numerous occasions but felt it would do more harm than improvement. Parallax has long-term plans, and the steps we take should be done properly and not in haste, which is why it takes longer than customers expect it should sometimes.*
BST couldn't be released because he also wanted an official Parallax compiler. Brad will also be a step closer to sharing his tools, should he desire to do so.*
Ken Gracey
All of this is a direct quote from Ken himself, in addition you might want to check the preliminary features list from parallax.
Sal is correct, basically vocalizing what I chose to leave unsaid because I DON'T want to paint the Prop chip in a bad light. It is a interesting processor for it's intended purpose, and as has been proven, unintended purposes as well. But it does have serious limitations.
It's fundamental architecture does not lend itself well to commercial endeavors. I've been doing firmware in the storage industry (disk, tape, optical), and other industries since '82. This processor would never have been able to do any of the projects I've worked on, except maybe the 8031/assembly code project I worked on in the early 80s.
It's hardly a competitor to i960/IOP330/XScale, anyway. The propeller can do plenty that an i960 can't (time-specific PWM, signal modulation/demodulation), and the i960 can do plenty that the prop can't (RAID 5). I don't like seeing the Propeller called a Processor, because it really isn't. It's a controller; far more in the realm of a PIC1650 than a CP1600.
I actually have read the definition of a mircocontroller according to Oxford, and I agree. Ish, sure I can't handle everything, and it's not a CPU, it's a controller, I get that. But that doesn't mean I don't sill think about what i said. I will one day ,ake a computer with this controller, even if it isn't a good design, just for the fun and to try and learn as much as I can about why the propeller won't work in this application so I can at least try and improve it if only a little.
As someone who's been in the embedded industry for almost 30 years, I can say you are quite correct. The Propeller is a novel and powerful architecture, but it's just not very well suited to embedded development in today's commercial world.
Some of the issues are, as you say, hardware and software limitations. There's no hardware debug capability, such as JTAG, for one. Even the smallest PIC and AVR microcontrollers have this capability and the Propeller's lack thereof is a glaring omission to an embedded engineer reading a datasheet. There are debug tools, but none of them really well integrated with the development environment, and most of them are invasive (need to modify existing code to use them).
Language support is another. The embedded community is overwhelmingly C oriented. All other languages are insignificant noise in the statistics. The Propeller didn't have C support at first, and even now the support is very limited and not very well integrated. Porting large code bases to the Propeller would be very difficult given its limitations.
I'm hoping that the PropII adequately addresses these issues, but some of the things mentioned above seem to not be possible given what we know of the architecture (e.g. the 2K limit on cog RAM).
I don't know what Parallax's plans are for the PropII, but if they hope to compete in the general embedded market, they'll have some stiff competition, who themselves are not standing still. Various ARM vendors are pushing forward with microcontrollers such as the LPC43xx series, which has a 204 MHz Cortex-M4 and a 204 MHz Cortex-M0 on the same die, along with 1 MB of FLASH and 264KB of RAM, a floating point unit, DSP and SIMD instructions, and a slew of peripherals, including state-driven timers, USB, Ethernet, etc., all for around ten bucks.
And unfortunately, I believe him. But I'm going to go on and way day create at least a prototype of this workstation as a hobby.
Hi Sonic,
I wasn't meaning to put you off - but it's better to start out with realistic expectations. The Propeller chip is an amazing beast, and we have still not explored its full potential. However, it is important to realize that for many "real world" applications, there are cheaper, more appropriate and more easily developed solutions available.
Yeah, I get that and you didn't out me off. I understand that there are cheaper real world applications, and others that aren't. But I'm fourteen and would like to fantasize about that, and constantly think about what is real and what isn't. At most I would mak an awesome retro gaming machine with lots of great home made gems!
If you guys managed to create a z80 in a chip, why not stretch it a little and add support with a Texas Instruments TMS9918, or the VDP of the master system! Any body follow where I'm going with this?:thumb:
Are you thinking of adding a 68k co-processor to make a MegaDrive, or are there Master System games you want to play, too? I don't know of any, myself.
Comments
Great for hobby projects though. Me? I'm hoping Prop2 solves some of the major limitations for commercial use.
Thanks Ken. Good to hear.
Ross.
Jazzed, I think your paranoia is showing
Ross.
But that's not what this is. For example, you could use an 18 wheel deisel truck as a personal airplane, it you only change the chassis, and engine, and fuel, and add wing & control surfaces and instrumentation, etc; but at some point it stops being one thing and becomes another. Start with what is closest to what you really want, and work from there.
The prop is designed to be a micro-control, it is NOT designed to be a workstation. Although if we use something like propforth we can make it do some set of workstation things and pretend it is similar enough to use in a workstation like manner in some limited set of conditions. But most folks that think "workstation" envision the entire set of workstation capabilities, the prop is not designed to provide these, and much clever work is required to move in this direction.
Remember, use the right tool for the right job. If you want a workstation, use a workstation; if you want a really powerful general purpose microcontroller, the prop can be a good choise.
After reading this thread, I came to one conclusion ........
I don't think that the Prop 1 chips potential has been fully realized yet !!
I may be out in left field but I think that there may be an opportunity to do something outstanding ! Why not take SPIN and make it a true symbolic language ? Not just something like MS Visual Basic, but a truely fundamental building block/modular interface ! Somthing like...... I want to have a pin on the chip send a pulse @ 60hz . You would grab a let's call it a (Action Block) from a menu and place it on the work window field. On the main field there is a diagram of the Prop chip. You place your command " Pulse 60hz" into the Action block and draw a line from the action block to pin 6 for instance. So this symbolic approach would be something like a electronics circuit simulator, where you can watch your programming in real time ! Or slow it down so you can follow every action like watching flow chart as it goes thru every step !
Everyone, young and old can program at this point !!
So..... why not put the SPIN on SYMBOLS, you already have some of them in your video characters and fonts ??
There are plenty of great programmers on here all they need is direction from you guys and gals at PARALLAX !!!
OK, I'm off the soapbox !
JTD
As someone who's been in the embedded industry for almost 30 years, I can say you are quite correct. The Propeller is a novel and powerful architecture, but it's just not very well suited to embedded development in today's commercial world.
Some of the issues are, as you say, hardware and software limitations. There's no hardware debug capability, such as JTAG, for one. Even the smallest PIC and AVR microcontrollers have this capability and the Propeller's lack thereof is a glaring omission to an embedded engineer reading a datasheet. There are debug tools, but none of them really well integrated with the development environment, and most of them are invasive (need to modify existing code to use them).
Language support is another. The embedded community is overwhelmingly C oriented. All other languages are insignificant noise in the statistics. The Propeller didn't have C support at first, and even now the support is very limited and not very well integrated. Porting large code bases to the Propeller would be very difficult given its limitations.
I'm hoping that the PropII adequately addresses these issues, but some of the things mentioned above seem to not be possible given what we know of the architecture (e.g. the 2K limit on cog RAM).
I don't know what Parallax's plans are for the PropII, but if they hope to compete in the general embedded market, they'll have some stiff competition, who themselves are not standing still. Various ARM vendors are pushing forward with microcontrollers such as the LPC43xx series, which has a 204 MHz Cortex-M4 and a 204 MHz Cortex-M0 on the same die, along with 1 MB of FLASH and 264KB of RAM, a floating point unit, DSP and SIMD instructions, and a slew of peripherals, including state-driven timers, USB, Ethernet, etc., all for around ten bucks.
It's fundamental architecture does not lend itself well to commercial endeavors. I've been doing firmware in the storage industry (disk, tape, optical), and other industries since '82. This processor would never have been able to do any of the projects I've worked on, except maybe the 8031/assembly code project I worked on in the early 80s.
Sadly, Sal is 100% correct.
Ross.
Hi Sonic,
I wasn't meaning to put you off - but it's better to start out with realistic expectations. The Propeller chip is an amazing beast, and we have still not explored its full potential. However, it is important to realize that for many "real world" applications, there are cheaper, more appropriate and more easily developed solutions available.
But none of them are as much fun!
Ross.
Good. At nearly four times you age I still think like that:)
As for the Prop as a general purpose computer, we've done it already, may be slow and small by modern standards, but so what?
ZiCog is a Z80 emulator that runs the CP/M operating system where you can use word processors, spread sheets, compilers etc. All good vintage stuff.http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?110804-ZiCog-a-Zilog-Z80-emulator-in-1-Cog
qZ80 is another Z80 emulator by PullMoll, this one was pushed as far as emulating a Sinclair Spectrum and others: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?121579-qZ80-the-third-shot
Or check out the "Hive", not an emulation of anything but definitely in the retro mode: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?108848-my-propeller-funproject-hive-the-retrocomputer
I'm sure there are others people could link to. You are not alone in your fantasies