Shop OBEX P1 Docs P2 Docs Learn Events
Propeller2Powered? — Parallax Forums

Propeller2Powered?

rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
edited 2012-12-04 04:31 in General Discussion
Dear Jeff,

I have a problem. I want to order one of every Propeller II board the minute they become available... but I can't. No one will take my order. There is no kickstarter for Propeller II boards... Can I just send you money or do I have to wait?

Rich

Comments

  • Oldbitcollector (Jeff)Oldbitcollector (Jeff) Posts: 8,091
    edited 2012-12-01 18:46
    You get to patiently wait with the rest of us...

    :)

    Jeff
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-12-01 21:15
    Oldbitcollector (Jeff) wrote: »
    You get to patently wait with the rest of us...

    :)

    Jeff
    Patiently? I'm not sure all of us are all that patient! :-)
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 10:44
    Oldbit... you really need to get up to speed:) What are you going to put on your Prop2 smorgasboard?

    David is entirely correct... and he is a Mac user... and just as soon as he gets the FPGA stuff squared away on a Mac or gives up and drags his windows computer downstairs, I'll be ordering the little one and the big one... and then I'm going to ask David how to put the little ones1 cog solution onto the big one's hardware and have the full 128k... and access to the rest of the FPGA for other stuff.

    Propeller II is here!!! And it has arrived in much the way we could have anticipated... little fanfare, big wrinkles, and the beauty of Chip's brain crammed into a magnificent piece of logic.


    Rich
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-12-03 11:02
    rjo__ wrote: »
    Oldbit... you really need to get up to speed:) What are you going to put on your Prop2 smorgasboard?

    David is entirely correct... and he is a Mac user... and just as soon as he gets the FPGA stuff squared away on a Mac or gives up and drags his windows computer downstairs, I'll be ordering the little one and the big one... and then I'm going to ask David how to put the little ones1 cog solution onto the big one's hardware and have the full 128k... and access to the rest of the FPGA for other stuff.

    Propeller II is here!!! And it has arrived in much the way we could have anticipated... little fanfare, big wrinkles, and the beauty of Chip's brain crammed into a magnificent piece of logic.


    Rich

    I already gave up on Parallels on the Mac and switched to my Windows 7 laptop. That works fine and I have created a simple "Hello, Propeller II!" program based on the sources for Chip's ROM monitor. Serial communications seems to be working fine. I'm now starting to port the PropGCC LMM kernel to the P2. I'm using the DE0-Nano but expect to switch to the DE2-115 at some point. What I'd like to do next is write a loader that can load more than 2K of code but I need a bit of assistance from Parallax to get that done.
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 11:07
    That's good to know... I'll be shopping for new windows machine dedicated to my PropII:)
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-12-03 11:07
    rjo__ wrote: »
    I'll be ordering the little one and the big one... and then I'm going to ask David how to put the little ones1 cog solution onto the big one's hardware and have the full 128k... and access to the rest of the FPGA for other stuff.
    Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen. When you load Chip's configuration file into either FPGA board it becomes a P2 emulator and can't really be used for anything else without overwriting the P2 emulator code. I don't think there will be a way to use any remaining FPGA space for something else.
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 11:18
    Sure there is... but if I ask Chip to do it... it would slow him down. And we can't have that, now can we? Probably require a non-disclosure and a second file:)
    What flavor of windows are you using?

    Rich
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-12-03 11:24
    rjo__ wrote: »
    Sure there is... but if I ask Chip to do it... it would slow him down. And we can't have that, now can we? Probably require a non-disclosure and a second file:)
    What flavor of windows are you using?

    Rich
    Windows 7. I have installed Windows 8 on one of my little-used desktop machines to play with it but haven't switched development over yet.
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 11:26
    Thanks for everything.

    Rich
  • rod1963rod1963 Posts: 752
    edited 2012-12-03 11:41
    Forget about merging the two boards, it can't be done. If you are really serious get a Stratix board - it's the same type Chip uses and can emulate the P2 with all 8 cogs. It will just set you back about $2000. Quite reasonable if you want to be first out of the gate with a cool commercial application that will pay back your initial investment.

    But if its just to play, stick with a DE2. But remember in a few months that $600 board will be a door stop after the Parallax releases the real thing.
  • Martin HodgeMartin Hodge Posts: 1,246
    edited 2012-12-03 11:48
    Chip said his Stratix board could only do 6 cogs.
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 12:24
    rod1963... I would like to quote you the way everyone else does... but I don't know how:)

    "remember in a few months that $600 board will be a door stop after the Parallax releases the real thing."

    I already have a couple of DE1's that are door stops...they got that way when I found the Prop1:)
    Martin: I was ready to shell out the money for the Stratix, but then I asked myself... "what in the world would I do with it?"
    Nobody I knew as doing anything with it... and without some sort of starting point, I would be completely failed.

    David has worked out serial communications for himself... that is good enough for me:)
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2012-12-03 12:27
    rjo__ wrote: »
    David has worked out serial communications for himself... that is good enough for me:)
    That is completely due to Chip's excellent ROM monitor code!

    Actually, Peter Jakacki‎ got code running on the P2 before I did and maybe some others as well. I've just asked the most questions! :-)
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2012-12-03 12:37
    rjo___
    I want to order one of every Propeller II board the minute they become available... but I can't.

    Are you one of those strange people who queue up outside Apple stores to get the latest iThing when it is launched?

    Just wait in line like everyone else.
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 16:01
    Heater

    Absolutely not. My father ... God rest his soul... served in Patton's Third Army. According to him,
    it was the best thing he ever did. But what you had to do in that Army was stand in lots of lines.
    When I was old enough to hear him, he taught me his lessons of life. One of them was: "Never stand in line. If you have to stand in a line,
    whatever it is that you are standing there for isn't worth it."

    I don't own an IPad, an IPod, or an IPhone. I put a quart of oil in my 13 year old Dodge Caravan yesterday. My Crossfire is sitting there, waiting for me to figure out a good reason to
    put a new rim on it.

    Why do you ask?
    Rich
  • Oldbitcollector (Jeff)Oldbitcollector (Jeff) Posts: 8,091
    edited 2012-12-03 17:59
    Drove by Parallax this afternoon...

    This was the scene outside.. Waiting for Prop2

    :)

    Parallax.jpg
    Parallax.jpg
    500 x 375 - 43K
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 18:16
    ROFL... tell them to go to Canada. That's where the first PropII's are coming from... those darned Canadians are a lot like the Australians... Can't live with them... can't live without them.
  • Roy ElthamRoy Eltham Posts: 3,000
    edited 2012-12-03 18:21
    Martin Hodge wrote: »
    Chip said his Stratix board could only do 6 cogs.

    This is correct, The Stratix III board that Chip has (and that I have), can only do 6 COGs and with 6 COGs it only goes 100Mhz. There are other Stratix boards with larger numbers of LEs that could do all 8 COGs and probably run them faster.

    Roy
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-03 19:17
    It's all about organizing the market. I am still finding Propeller boards I had no idea existed. No doubt some of the developers were crushed when Parallax decided not to buy a thousand units.
    The best effort I have seen so far to get everyone on the same page and going in the same direction was the Smorgasboard... some of those were new to me too.

    I'm not interested in soldering... I'll do it if I have to ... I'm interested in complete boards. I've seen lots of guys saying that they plan to have boards ready... day one.

    Well, this is day one... and there are no boards:)

    I'm just trying to say that I trust Jeff... he's a square shooter... and I think any developer should trust Jeff. And if you want to offer something and Parallax is too busy...
    you could have sales today... before your board is even back from the foundry ... or wherever they do that stuff:)

    Right now I'm in the market for a proto board to slap onto an PropIIHELP... something with footprints and jumpers for size 805 or 604 chips would be nice.

    Rich
  • rwgast_logicdesignrwgast_logicdesign Posts: 1,464
    edited 2012-12-04 01:16
    Am i missing something? I have put some thought into laying out a prop2 board with a special twist, as the prop2 has so much power im sure well see boards to for niche audiences, i.e. rf boards, boards for graphics, full consoles using sdram, on top of bare breakout boards. But there is no data sheet yet is there? How is this day 1? Im not sure theres enough info out there yet to layout a PCB is there?
  • rjo__rjo__ Posts: 2,114
    edited 2012-12-04 04:31
    Chip has decided to release some files that will allow anyone to turn an FPGA board into the functional equivalent of a PropII, with a speed limiter and with fewer cogs...
    For about $79, plus applicable shipping and taxes, you can have a one cog version and less than full hub ram... for about $600, you can have full HUB ram, six cogs and a speed of about 60MHz.

    This is very good news and this is a game changer for developers.

    As far as I'm concerned... it is a PropII in a well wrapped box. How many times have you gotten what you ordered but you have trouble opening the box? That's what we have here.

    As an analogy, there is an old debate in computer science that has something to do with how
    we will know or when we should decide that computers have reached a level of human interaction that we should call intelligent... or something like that. Don't exactly remember the question, but
    the answer was... "when you can write it a letter and you can't tell if the return answer came from a person or a machine."

    Right now, the conversation is somewhat beyond my natural talents... but David has gotten the machine to talk over a serial line... and that to me, means it's time to go.

    Day 1 has arrived:)

    I have jury duty today... and then a whole bunch of obligations. I'll be back next weekend.

    Rich

    By the way... these little boards are not idiot proof... which means I shouldn't be touching them and a valid reason for working the Nano version first:) Ergo, Erco, procter hop... the need for an adapter board with some frills.
Sign In or Register to comment.