Although we all should be careful with how we word things, we probably should cut him some slack on the "supposed to be" wording. Human language is flexible. And, although no promises were made, there were at least a couple of Parallax-originated guesstimates that put the Prop II a year out over the last few years (as has been admitted). So, it's understandable that one might ask about this now if one hasn't been following this forum closely during the last six months or so. And nearly everytime someone ask, it seems we get some good info from someone or relevant links gathered together in a convenient (or at least another) place. And sometimes another squeak from the collective wheel causes the application of some more oil.
Chip design is tricky business, but rest assured, DT, we are all as anxious as you for the release. And it seems like things are looking good for some silicon (or at least test silicon) within several months, perhaps sometime in the second half of the year. In fact, recently, the designers spent time on the forum discussing code protection (using fuse bits and encryption schemes). That's a good sign, as doing so wouldn't make that much sense if there was no designed chip to protect. Also, IIRC, one of the staff mentioned that they were in the "crossing the T's and dotting the I's" phase, and that's just music to our itchy ears.
Chip could write a book about the Prop2 development, but the crux of it is summed up as "10 steps forward, 9 steps back". His development process hasn't been totally transparent, probably because he's so busy. Based on what I've read and heard, a good part of Prop2 design was in methodologies, not the actual technology of the chip. They started with a similar process to the Prop1, which is schematic level design, then restarted with higher level design tools later. I don't know the inbetween, but it is clear that him and Beau have been very busy for the last 6 years.
Has there been any news about a release date on the Propeller 2 yet?
With news of the Gangster Gadget Propeller Platform USB (which I just bought a few weeks ago) going obsolete or not selling any more, etc.. I want to know if I should continue with the Propeller or wait on the Propeller 2.
I just skimmed through the preliminary feature list for the Prop II and I see texture mapping support is still in there. I see instructions for setting registers associated with texture mapping, but not an actual texture mapping instruction. Did I just miss that or is this a sort of fire and forget operation where you set the registers and hardware grinds out the appropriate pixels without further intervention? In the second case there doesn't seem to be enough information to do that (no scan line lengths or stop points.) Also, I see there is a z address to be set, does this indicate that hidden surface elimination is done with a z-buffer? In short, does anyone know how texture mapping will work on the Prop II? This, along with the new math ops should be very interesting to game programmers. Also, by defining rectangles parallel to the screen, one could use texture mapping as a bit-blitting operation and support windowing in that way.
DToolan
Posts: 11
Comments
It's getting closer ;o)
["We will release updated specifications at http://www.parallaxsemiconductor.com...ropeller2specs on March 6, 2012.
Ken Gracey "]
Parallax has done a great job in keeping us posted about it's progress on this forum. See recent Propeller threads.
Chip design is tricky business, but rest assured, DT, we are all as anxious as you for the release. And it seems like things are looking good for some silicon (or at least test silicon) within several months, perhaps sometime in the second half of the year. In fact, recently, the designers spent time on the forum discussing code protection (using fuse bits and encryption schemes). That's a good sign, as doing so wouldn't make that much sense if there was no designed chip to protect. Also, IIRC, one of the staff mentioned that they were in the "crossing the T's and dotting the I's" phase, and that's just music to our itchy ears.
With news of the Gangster Gadget Propeller Platform USB (which I just bought a few weeks ago) going obsolete or not selling any more, etc.. I want to know if I should continue with the Propeller or wait on the Propeller 2.
That depends, on if you prefer to continue working, or prefer to simply wait.
It is hard to ship a chip that does not yet exist.
-pharseid