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Is the P8X64A dead ? / PropBasic IDE — Parallax Forums

Is the P8X64A dead ? / PropBasic IDE

BeanBean Posts: 8,129
edited 2012-10-15 18:28 in Propeller 1
I was doing a little work on PropBasic and I had started to add support for the 64 I/O version of the Propeller awhile ago.
But I haven't heard anything about it lately.
Is it dead ? Or just on the back burner ?

Bean
«13

Comments

  • KyeKye Posts: 2,200
    edited 2012-10-10 06:20
    Its Dead... very, much so.
  • RsadeikaRsadeika Posts: 3,837
    edited 2012-10-10 06:35
    I was doing a little work on PropBasic...
    I thought PropBasic was dead along with the 64 I/O Propeller. Seriously, will you be supporting the new Prop II chip? And if you are, I thought that BST was no longer being supported, what, probably going on three or four years now. So, I guess you need to develop your own IDE...

    Ray
  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2012-10-10 07:37
    Kye wrote: »
    Its Dead... very, much so.

    Okay, Thanks Kye.

    Bean
  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2012-10-10 07:39
    Rsadeika wrote: »
    I thought PropBasic was dead along with the 64 I/O Propeller. Seriously, will you be supporting the new Prop II chip? And if you are, I thought that BST was no longer being supported, what, probably going on three or four years now. So, I guess you need to develop your own IDE...

    Ray

    Yeah, the IDE is the problem. I'm not able to make and IDE.
    I wish the Prop Tool would allow you to launch a compiler and then open the resulting .spin file. That would make my life a lot easier.

    Bean
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-10-10 07:43
    Bean wrote: »
    Yeah, the IDE is the problem. I'm not able to make and IDE.
    I wish the Prop Tool would allow you to launch a compiler and then open the resulting .spin file. That would make my life a lot easier.

    Bean
    Steve was planning on making SimpleIDE generic enough to support both C/C++ and Spin. Maybe it could support PropBasic as well?
  • pmrobertpmrobert Posts: 675
    edited 2012-10-10 08:25
    David Betz wrote: »
    Steve was planning on making SimpleIDE generic enough to support both C/C++ and Spin. Maybe it could support PropBasic as well?

    That would be a very nice addition to the SimpleIDE galaxy of supported languages!

    -Mike
  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,155
    edited 2012-10-10 11:21
    We were never able to verify the layout due to problems in our layout-versus-schematic tool. So, we can't fabricate it with assurance that the layout is okay. At this point, if we were to make another 0.35um Propeller chip, we'd probably use synthesis to incorporate some design improvements and make things faster (MHz-wise). I suppose that with the kind of tools we've been designing Prop II with, we could get a Prop I redo going 50% faster (120MHz, instead of 80MHz).
  • pedwardpedward Posts: 1,642
    edited 2012-10-10 11:24
    Oh Chip, you're always so conservative!
  • pgbpsupgbpsu Posts: 460
    edited 2012-10-10 11:48
    cgracey wrote: »
    We were never able to verify the layout due to problems in our layout-versus-schematic tool. So, we can't fabricate it with assurance that the layout is okay. At this point, if we were to make another 0.35um Propeller chip, we'd probably use synthesis to incorporate some design improvements and make things faster (MHz-wise). I suppose that with the kind of tools we've been designing Prop II with, we could get a Prop I redo going 50% faster (120MHz, instead of 80MHz).

    8-cogs, 64 pins and 120Mhz. When can we start buying them?

    p
  • Ken GraceyKen Gracey Posts: 7,392
    edited 2012-10-10 12:17
    @Bean - have you gotten in contact with Steve Denson (jazzed) about the possibility of incorporating PropBASIC into Simple IDE?
  • RsadeikaRsadeika Posts: 3,837
    edited 2012-10-10 12:23
    Originally Posted by Bean View Post
    Steve (Jazzed), I was wondering if you would be willing to support PropBasic with SimpleIDE ?
    Hi Bean.

    SimpleIDE will be undergoing changes in the near future to support the goals of Parallax Education.
    Once that is done, I'll consider other possibilities.

    --Steve

    Ray
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-10-10 12:46
    Actually, I wasn't really suggesting that Steve would add PropBasic support. What I meant was that, if Steve provides a generic way to add new languages to SimpleIDE, someone else can add PropBasic or any other language without Steve's help.
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-10-10 13:12
    David Betz wrote: »
    Actually, I wasn't really suggesting that Steve would add PropBasic support. What I meant was that, if Steve provides a generic way to add new languages to SimpleIDE, someone else can add PropBasic or any other language without Steve's help.
    I guess I'm confused about what is available. It seems SimpleIDE does not have a generic way to add new languages so my original suggestion was out of line. I retract it.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2012-10-10 13:18
    David Betz wrote: »
    Actually, I wasn't really suggesting that Steve would add PropBasic support. What I meant was that, if Steve provides a generic way to add new languages to SimpleIDE, someone else can add PropBasic or any other language without Steve's help.

    True, any well-finished IDE should be able to simply launch a user batch file, as that covers all 'other' bases.

    In extreme cases, if you cannot edit any names, I've created a tiny EXE file that replaces the locked in EXE, and calls a batch file...

    I've only hit one IDE that used some secret 'completion' code, before launching the next step. WWTT

    Or, if the IDE can launch with a command line, you can sometimes invert the process, and use an external Syntax highlighting Editor, and then that calls the IDE (works best with nimble IDE's, and I see SimpleIDE is ~ 100MB zipped )
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2012-10-10 13:30
    jmg wrote: »
    ... I see SimpleIDE is ~ 100MB zipped )
    Thou doest protest too much :)

    SimpleIDE includes the PropellerGCC package and all variations of libraries, etc....
    Perhaps you can make that combination smaller and still offer everything that GCC offers.

    Personally, I like the Geany IDE, but it does not offer embedded systems features.
    A Geany plug-in is possible and would help with packaging, but it's hard to say how far it can go.


    David's point is that he didn't know how much support is there for other languages already.
    I'm not interested in being committed to anything beyond what I am working on now until I'm done with it.
    Only then will I consider other things.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,069
    edited 2012-10-10 13:43
    Bean: bst can be run using command line parameters (something like make???). I know Ross uses homespun to compile catalina programs and I use homespun to run a batch file to compile all my PropOS files in one go. I believe bst could also do this. Of course I use bst to compile ZiCog with all the hardware versions (#define).

    Chip: A new P1 at 120MHz... I already run P1 at 104MHz so would that mean I could safely run at 104 / 80 * 120 = 156MHz ??? Of course I would up that to 160MHz ;)
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2012-10-10 13:50
    Bean, is there a command-line version of PropBasic? I have used it in the past, but it was always done with BST.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2012-10-10 13:52
    Not BST exactly but BSTC which is the separate command line compiler, and BSTL which is the loader.

    David,

    Thing about "a generic way to add new languages" is that just enabling the editor to execute some compiler or other when you hit a button is not enough. What about syntax highlighting? What about parsing the error messages so that the user can instantly jump to the erroneous line? What about "intellisence" like features? Before you know it you are building Eclipse and good by "simple" as in SimpleIDE.

    I was already worried when Jazzed started to put Spin support in there:)
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2012-10-10 13:53
    jazzed wrote: »
    SimpleIDE includes the PropellerGCC package and all variations of libraries, etc....

    Ok, the detail that it includes the PropellerGCC package, I missed on the Download and Project pages....
    Perhaps you could say that, and state which PropellerGCC package Build is included ?
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-10-10 13:57
    Heater. wrote: »
    Not BST exactly but BSTC which is the separate command line compiler, and BSTL which is the loader.

    David,

    Thing about "a generic way to add new languages" is that just enabling the editor to execute some compiler or other when you hit a button is not enough. What about syntax highlighting? What about parsing the error messages so that the user can instantly jump to the erroneous line? What about "intellisence" like features? Before you know it you are building Eclipse and good by "simple" as in SimpleIDE.

    I was already worried when Jazzed started to put Spin support in there:)

    Did BST do all of that for PropBasic? I guess I was just assuming the same level of language support as is already in BST. I don't think that is very fancy is it?
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2012-10-10 13:59
    jmg wrote: »
    Ok, the detail that it includes the PropellerGCC package, I missed on the Download and Project pages....
    Perhaps you could say that, and state which PropellerGCC package Build is included ?

    We can do that going forward. Thanks for the reminder.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2012-10-10 14:00
    Heater. wrote: »
    Thing about "a generic way to add new languages" is that just enabling the editor to execute some compiler or other when you hit a button is not enough.
    It is to get a functional pulse.
    heater wrote:
    What about syntax highlighting? What about parsing the error messages so that the user can instantly jump to the erroneous line? What about "intellisence" like features? Before you know it you are building Eclipse and good by "simple" as in SimpleIDE.

    Those are 'nice to have', but users often have their own editors. and a common way to work, is code the bulk in your favourite editor, and get to a 'it compiles' stage (so the highlighting and errors are handled elsewhere), and then Launch the IDE to download/test and maybe do some minor editing.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2012-10-10 14:06
    jmg,

    Exactly, if all that stuff is just nice to have, and users have their own prefered editors and it's just to get a pulse then why bother at all?
    You can already do that with pretty much every decent editor since last century.
  • Dr_AculaDr_Acula Posts: 5,484
    edited 2012-10-10 15:40
    I'm working on a design at the moment to give you more I/O pins using 74xx chips. Ok, not as flexible as a micro design as individual cogs can't access pins (there needs to be a master cog acting as a post office for I/O requests). But I think one can get 96 I/O pins without too much trouble.

    I suppose a related question is whether it is better to have lots of support chips vs a design where you have several propeller chips talking via a simple 2 line bus. The propeller chips cost more than 74xx chips, but 74xx chips use up more PCB space which ultimately may cost more than propeller chips.

    Maybe what we need is software that can make three propeller chips look like a single chip with 96k of ram and 24 cogs?
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2012-10-10 15:49
    Heater. wrote: »
    Exactly, if all that stuff is just nice to have, and users have their own prefered editors and it's just to get a pulse then why bother at all?

    It depends on what IDE means.

    I'm used to it meaning Integrated Debug Environment, or Integrated Develop Environment, where 'Debug' is implicit in that 'Develop', and implicit in that 'Debug' is a means to download code, and in an ideal world, Step/Break/Watch too.
    Here, you often need to 'patch into' the default means to download/debug, from other tool chains.

    Some use IDE to mean what I would call an editor.

    Perhaps smarter would be IDDE, (Integrated Develop & Debug Environment) or ICDE (Integrated Compile & Debug Environment)
  • doggiedocdoggiedoc Posts: 2,243
    edited 2012-10-10 15:54
    Dr_Acula wrote: »
    Maybe what we need is software that can make three propeller chips look like a single chip with 96k of ram and 24 cogs?
    Now that's an intriguing concept. The latency between chips would be the hurdle I'd think.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2012-10-10 16:00
    Dr_Acula wrote: »
    Maybe what we need is software that can make three propeller chips look like a single chip with 96k of ram and 24 cogs?

    Interesting : This would need some form of Chain loader, so a single EE could load many Props... The slave loader link, would also be the slave communication link, once run was achieved.
    A bit like a JTAG Chain, but with some software patching to suit the Prop hardware.

    We have used what I call a 'Twisted Ring' chain for very easy 'just add more in a ring' Serial;

    Here we use an edge on the 9th UART Bit, as a flag. Each node extracts N bytes after the edge, and shifts the edge, and echos all other bytes.
    Address is simply implicit in the location in the ring, and it is suited to high speed links.
    Since a prop does this in SW, you could use a 33 bit message size (Xtal inferred).
  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2012-10-10 17:41
    Ken Gracey wrote: »
    @Bean - have you gotten in contact with Steve Denson (jazzed) about the possibility of incorporating PropBASIC into Simple IDE?

    Ken, Yes I have. Steve says after he's finished with what he has on his plate, he will look into it.

    Bean
  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2012-10-10 17:46
    Dave Hein wrote: »
    Bean, is there a command-line version of PropBasic? I have used it in the past, but it was always done with BST.

    Dave, PropBasic IS a command-line compiler. Just run it with the complete path to your pbas file (in quotes) as the first parameter.
    For example

    PropBasic.exe "C:\MyFile\MyProg.pbas"

    There are several options that can be added

    Switches:
    /Q = Quiet (No screen output)
    /P = Pause on warning or error (used to debug compiler)
    /B = Brief output (does not show source code)
    /O = "Output_Directory" Specifies a diffrent directory for output files
    /V = Returns Version number as exit code (exit immediately)
    /NS = No Code (Does NOT include the BASIC code in the output file)
    /VP = Compiling for ViewPort

    Bean
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2012-10-10 19:33
    Where is the command-line version located? I spent 15 minutes searching just now, and all I can find is the BST version.
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