Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
Increasing memory on propeller- question — Parallax Forums

Increasing memory on propeller- question

RforbesRforbes Posts: 281
edited 2012-11-12 17:01 in Propeller 1
Hey everyone,

Is there a way to access the entire eeprom so that it can be used for spin code when the eeprom is 64kb? I'm working with a spinneret, and I'm really pushing the limit on the lower 32kb. I'm mainly just asking this out of curiosity sake.... it seems some of you might have run into this problem before? Sorry if this question has been answered a bazillion times, I did a quick search and didn't really find a straight forward answer.

Thanks in advance,
Robert

Comments

  • prof_brainoprof_braino Posts: 4,313
    edited 2012-11-12 15:46
    You can use the upper 32k (and anything beyond you add yourself) for values. I don't think we store spin images per se in upper eeprom..

    Propforth has some ways to use additonal EEPROM as a primitive file system storage, you can maybe get some ideas from that and adapt it to you r purpose?

    You could also you the SD as storage for scripts. Propforth lets us call (and forget) scripts right off the SD, so we can have programs of pretty much unlimited size, as long as its less than 32k at a time. You can also storage and serve HTML files.

    If you like any of those idead, you can copy them in spin, etc.
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2012-11-12 16:19
    Since you asked about SPIN ...

    Today SPIN is a 16 bit language. That is, you get access to 32KB of hub RAM and 32KB of ROM. There are alternatives for a "single program" bigger than 32KB beyond SPIN, but they are generally slower and require special hardware. If you can break you problem up into several smaller programs, you can use one of the SD Card loaders to load one SPIN program at a time based on the what you need.

    If you don't mind a performance hit, then it's worth looking at some alternatives. SD Card can be used with propeller-gcc for larger C programs, although that is slower than other hardware solutions because of the way SD Cards work. No one has produced a hardware solution specifically for the Spinneret yet. Something is on the way though.
  • RforbesRforbes Posts: 281
    edited 2012-11-12 16:22
    Ah, ok. Thanks guys. I'm just trying to get a somewhat decent grasp on what's needed to make it happen. These are good answers... Thanks!

    I'm sure my code could be minimized, and I'm working on that. It's to a point where I have 410 longs free, and I still need to write several more methods for my application.

    I'll get there, bit by bit! Uhhh... wow, no pun intended. But sort of.... heh.
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2012-11-12 16:52
    What you want (storing a program > 32K in EEPROM) isn't really practical. It's easy to store a complete program in the upper half of a 64K EEPROM and load it using any of several EEPROM loaders. FemtoBasic and its derivatives have such a loader that can use even more EEPROM space, but doing anything more sophisticated requires more knowledge of the Propeller and Spin internals than I suspect you have. The FemtoBasic loader can be used separately from FemtoBasic for reading and writing EEPROM as well as for loading programs
  • RforbesRforbes Posts: 281
    edited 2012-11-12 17:01
    Mike- Thanks for the input. You're right about my knowledge level. For now. :smile: I'll keep working at my code and, as always, enjoying the experience.
Sign In or Register to comment.