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Question regarding Open Source propeller tools. — Parallax Forums

Question regarding Open Source propeller tools.

__red____red__ Posts: 470
edited 2013-11-07 06:38 in Propeller 1
I've got my $200 Google Chromebook working wonderfully with openspin but, as it's an arm-based laptop none of the binary tools work.

I've looked at the propgcc loader but it appears to have a dependancy on propeller-elf-gcc which I'm having issues building.

Anyone know of any simple loader programs I can compile for this somewhat oddball platform?

Thanks,



Red

Comments

  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2013-10-11 18:23
    __red__ wrote: »
    I've got my $200 Google Chromebook working wonderfully with openspin but, as it's an arm-based laptop none of the binary tools work.

    I've looked at the propgcc loader but it appears to have a dependancy on propeller-elf-gcc which I'm having issues building.

    Anyone know of any simple loader programs I can compile for this somewhat oddball platform?

    Thanks,



    Red

    Heater has built the entire tool chain on the RaspberryPi which is also ARM based so it is possible.
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2013-10-11 21:35
    __red__ wrote: »
    Anyone know of any simple loader programs I can compile for this somewhat oddball platform?

    Hi Red.

    Will Chromebook run tcl/tk or Python?
  • __red____red__ Posts: 470
    edited 2013-10-12 09:06
    jazzed wrote: »
    Will Chromebook run tcl/tk or Python?

    It should, happily. I'm trying to stick to a console app though if possible. I'm using vi, openspin and Makefiles.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-10-12 09:26
    __red__

    I have no idea if binaries for the raspberrypi will work on a Chromebook but I managed to build propgcc, loader, SimpleIDE and friends for the raspi. You can download them in this package:
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81267937/SimpleIDE-0-9-43.armv6l.raspberrypi-linux.tar.bz2

    The loader requires BSTC to build some Spin/PASM code it uses. To get around the fact that BSTC won't run on ARM I first build propgcc on my PC and then copy the *.binary and *.dat files the loader requires to the Pi. Then the loader can be built on the Pi.

    By the way how are you doing all this on a Chromebook? Have you replaced ChromeOS with a Linux distro or what? Any instructions?
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2013-10-12 16:55
    Hi Red.

    The propeller-load tool can be built for any platform.
    The simplest possible form of it just for downloading spin would be PLoadLib.c

    PLoadLib.c PLoadLib.h osint.h osint_mingw.c osint_linux.c

    # Windows (requires mingw)
    gcc -o pload -DMAIN PLoadLib.c osint_mingw.c

    # MAC or Linux
    gcc -o pload -DMAIN PLoadLib.c osint_linux.c


    Alternatives for the GUI inclined is here: https://code.google.com/p/tclbits/
    This is a tcl/tk based GUI that has some pre-built propeller-load versions in it.

    I'm considering writing a Python GUI version because I'm taking a class and need a real project to anchor the syntax.
  • __red____red__ Posts: 470
    edited 2013-10-12 18:41
    Bless you Jazzed, that works perfectly :-D

    You might want to make a make target for that as a minimum binary. That is extraordinarily useful :-)

    Much obliged.



    Red
  • WossnameWossname Posts: 174
    edited 2013-11-07 04:26
    I've written a mostly finished but as-yet unreleased command line propeller loader for generic linux written in plain C (zero dependencies) called PushProp.
    I've been meaning to get it out there into the world for people to play with but I forgot all about it. I suspect Heater's toolchain does everthing my loader does and more.

    If anyone's interested let me know by posting on the features page on my blog...
    http://wardyprojects.blogspot.co.uk/p/pushprop-linuxunix-open-source-p8x32a.html
    ...and I'll try to package it all up and do a release this weekend.

    I was going to add code security features to allow source code to be encrypted in the eeprom but I don't seem to have received much interest in that feature so far from the people I've asked.
    If anyone wants that, let me know and I'll implement that as well. Might be very useful for industrial Propeller users that want to protect their IP from competitors.
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    edited 2013-11-07 04:40
    Wossname wrote: »
    I've written a mostly finished but as-yet unreleased command line propeller loader for generic linux written in plain C (zero dependencies) called PushProp.
    The propeller-load program already fills this role or are you bothered by the fact that it includes some Spin/PASM code that needs to be compiled by something like openspin?
  • WossnameWossname Posts: 174
    edited 2013-11-07 06:38
    David Betz wrote: »
    The propeller-load program already fills this role or are you bothered by the fact that it includes some Spin/PASM code that needs to be compiled by something like openspin?
    I'm not bothered by anything, I wrote it last year and never did much with it, shame for it to go to waste. Mine doesn't compile anything actually. It's just an image pusher with encryption options.
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