Guys, there haven't been any Super-8s available for more than 20 years. The only ones I ever used were NMOS (requiring a heatsink), and they were samples. It was a real shame: Zilog killed an amazing chip. I used one of the samples to drive a 4-axis CNC. The backend was written in S8 assembler; the frontend, in Forth. It was a happy marriage, and both were a pleasure to program in.
-Phil
It seems that many novel chips died this way, perhaps because the companies making them had over-blown expectations. The bean counters said "Nope!" after too short a time.
It seems that many novel chips died this way, perhaps because the companies making them had over-blown expectations.
In Zilog's case, there was one FAE who championed the chip, gave presentations, and wrote numerous appnotes for it. Somehow, he disappeared, was demoted, or -- who knows? But from then on, the project entered a death spiral.
But back to the subject at hand.
<toughlove>Chip, you've opened the P2 dev to public input. I hate to say it, but what you've gotten are a bunch of sycophants who say they love you for entertaining their wild fantasies, but will they respect you in the morning? Unless you deliver a finished product -- and soon -- I doubt it. Moreover, if you expect Parallax to profit from the P2, these are not the people you need to be listening to. These guys are not your friends, nor the friends of a company and its employees that hope to profit from your efforts. They're hobbyists and, at best, low-volume users. What do your potential OEM customers want that other semiconductor companies are not providing? Do you have any idea?
I've been in business since 1976. Try as I might, I've yet to find a customer who will pay me for projects I start but do not finish. Even Parallax, in all their amazing, open-arms generosity, demands more from me for remuneration than a half-baked idea. (If anybody knows of a more gullible company, please email me. Don't post it here: I want to get to them first!)
Anyway, you did a bang-up job on the P1, working in virtual obscurity and focused on a singular vision for a chip that turned out to be amazing. Maybe it's time to go back to that mode of operation, to shun the forum entirely, to turn inward, and to recover the same vision for the P2 that you had seven years ago. Then just get it done.
I'm sorry to be so frank in such a public venue, but I'm just not sure that the reality of the situation has captured your full attention. I really want to see you and Parallax succeed with the P2. But there needs to be some imminent closure, or it just ain't gonna happen.</toughlove>
What a lot of blather Phil! I'm not personally adding anything in terms of requests but I feel everything being added are great ideas and the P2 will be better for it.
We all know there is a schedule and that schedule still on course.
PS: You're a smart person, I'm actually a bit shocked to see you posting so narrowly.
Phil has a valid point related to products being developed in tandem with sometimes aggressive efforts to impact the chip design one way or the other, as well as lack of some data / basic research on market potentials / niches, etc...
Phil,
As far as I understand P2 progress is currently waiting on a time slot for the next possible shuttle run. That is not until March or April. So playing around with ideas here is not adding delay.
Having said that there are many "friends" here advising that the design be frozen very soon to allow us to get on with a good lot of testing without changes breaking peoples code every day.
Chip is a sensible chap. He seems to have great skill in sifting through the myriad of ideas that turn up here and making something elegant of of the good ones. We are confident the P2 design is not going to wrecked at the last moment.
You know, that post was a tad insulting to all those who have posted suggestions here with the best of intentions.
You know, that post was a tad insulting to all those who have posted suggestions here with the best of intentions.
Well, you know what they say about the road to hell ... Anyway, having been one of those people myself, and in belated recognition of my own motivations at the time, I stand by my comments.
Of course people post ideas here with some degree of selfishness, after all they are suggesting something they want themselves. That's not all together bad. We trust that out of that melee of possibly conflicting ideas and self interests will come a really neat product.
That's what I'm hoping. I've limited my comments at times for that precise purpose. I want it good, really good. Not only good for this and that special thing... I think Chip has a great grasp on the larger scale implications and his natural tendency to simplify and generalize without diluting things down too much is enough.
Phil has a valid point related to products being developed in tandem with sometimes aggressive efforts to impact the chip design one way or the other, as well as lack of some data / basic research on market potentials / niches, etc...
It's not blather. Quite rational actually.
Well, I feel great about the project. I took things about as far as I knew how, and then all these helpers showed up with a bunch of great ideas that I didn't have, and the project was strengthened immensely. We're now headed for a way better chip than we were on course for.
I've been visualizing the synergy on the forum like a gold dredging operation that we all fell into together, kind of accidentally. Now we've got tons of high grade ore coming into our sluice and we are standing on the side of the thing pulling off one fantastic nugget after the next. We're all getting rich in ideas and someday, hopefully soon, we'll have a real chip that embodies all this discovery.
Of course people post ideas here with some degree of selfishness, after all they are suggesting something they want themselves. That's not all together bad. We trust that out of that melee of possibly conflicting ideas and self interests will come a really neat product.
I guess it's a question of whose self-interests are being served by this process. If the creative whims of multiple forumistas -- regardless of their intentions -- do not align with market realities, then I would contend that those whims do not deserve an audience, much less consideration that may delay the roll-out of an actual product.
Hey Phil I've been running the P2 (albeit in its larger, fpga form), for a good 12 months longer than PropCam, so far... :P
I can understand some aspects of your post, but please please may we not end up with and OEM driven Coldfire, Arm etc. I'm counting on Parallax for this much...
Phil,
I get your sentiment to a point, but I think it's kind of against the direction that Parallax has decided to go. I also think that maybe you overestimate the negative impact on the changes happening now on the delivery date while ignoring the positive impacts. Especially since some of them will make it more likely to be sooner (less chance of failing a run), and making it more likely to be better for Parallax's commercial and educational customers. There are also things that need to be done besides Chip working on the verilog for the cores.
Chip has said several times that the P2 has been made much better because of his working with others instead of alone.
In any case, it is my understanding that even if Chip made no changes to the Verilog except those required for the new process being used, that it wouldn't change the schedule for doing synthesis or getting another run going. So Why not do changes that will make the chip better, given the time? Especially the changes that improve the chips chances of success!
Phil,
Also, as much as I know you don't care for C/C++, the educational and commercial customers (Parallax's) want it, and making the P2 better at that is a win.
If we ask the current world market what they want they will say they want cheaper, bigger, faster ARM processors. Exactly the thing Chip does not want to make. Exactly the market Parallax could not possibly compete in.
Market realities. Pah. We know nothing of the market realities for the P2. There is no other such product to compare to. Except perhaps XMOS.
We have to leave the judgment of the P2's market realities to Chip and Ken.
Also, as much as I know you don't care for C/C++, the educational and commercial customers (Parallax's) want it, and making the P2 better at that is a win.
Yeah, I know. That fact rankles a bit and puts the lie to my insistence on market sensitivity. But I'm resigned to it.
Exactly. We out here have no idea. Perhaps some wild speculation. And neither is it any concern of ours, except that individually we would all like to get hold of the chips at some point.
As I said, it's for Ken and Chip to worry about. It's their product, their company and their livelyhood.
From statements Ken has made I gather they have a good finger on the pulse of potential customers.
It seems that many novel chips died this way, perhaps because the companies making them had over-blown expectations. The bean counters said "Nope!" after too short a time.
It was not always over-blown expectations - some chips were ahead of their time, in silicon terms, but came out on the wrong side of the transition to Flash. Yes, you can be too early.
Others floundered because the software was abysmal, and the Chip vendors failed to grasp that side of the coin.
It's many years since I was involved in fully custom chips, and they were analogue, but I am very curious as to why the P2 timeline is so slow. I see posts that the next shuttle run is not until April(ish) next year. Surely they happen more often than that? Or is it just that there is a price list and if you book a slot on a future run it's much cheaper?
Hmmm, I think some of these BULLETS are directed my way.
Oh well, This seems to be part of being involved in the P2 project.
If all the participants on this forum were surveyed on what P2 instructions they would
use from the current list available and the results were compared, I'm sure no two lists would match.
We all have different plans for using P2 and different skill levels.
Some people will never use video, some will never use multi-tasking, some will never use grey codes..etc
Chip was once asked what he thought people would do with the P2.
IIRC he said "I don't know, it's up to their imagination" or words to that effect.
I've been working on this P2 project since April on DE0 and later DE2 as well.
Since September have shifted to full-time P2 development/testing.
Until you use the "BEAST" it's hard to describe how GREAT the P2 is.
I detect a bad vibe about the BCD discussion on another thread.
I have posted multiple software solutions to the problem and suggested possible instruction additions.
These additions are based on real experience running code in the P2 FPGA emulators.
Most of the motivation behind these are code size driven not speed.
I did not start that thread but participated in it's discussion.
I certainly can't make Chip do what I say and I wouldn't expect him to do so.
"If ideas aren't floated their never discussed and therefore maybe lost forever."
It's many years since I was involved in fully custom chips, and they were analogue, but I am very curious as to why the P2 timeline is so slow. I see posts that the next shuttle run is not until April(ish) next year. Surely they happen more often than that? Or is it just that there is a price list and if you book a slot on a future run it's much cheaper?
I wouldn't know the details but there is a change of fab and a variant of process.
It seems that many novel chips died this way, perhaps because the companies making them had over-blown expectations. The bean counters said "Nope!" after too short a time.
Doubtless true for many instances. "Success or failure" is too often based on booking million-piece orders - right out of the gate at that. The Super-8 almost certainly was not an unabashed failure in the marketplace, it simply didn't meet (some) expectations.
Well, I feel great about the project. I took things about as far as I knew how, and then all these helpers showed up with a bunch of great ideas that I didn't have, and the project was strengthened immensely. We're now headed for a way better chip than we were on course for.
I know you do Chip, and it is great to see!
I really like where the P2 is converging personally. I only wanted to communicate I could understand Phil's rational concern. I've personally accepted this project as not being standard in any way, and the parts of my experience that would make me feel worry about it don't apply. I think this chip is going to be great! And I believe in your ability to steer the ship. I'm not sure everybody can or will see that, and I understand the reasons for it. Best everybody keep talking for the best result, IMHO.
I voiced support for Phil, because it is rational, not blather. Let's keep talking. That was my intent.
It would seem you were also being a tad facetious - http://forums.parallax.com/showthrea...=1#post1223778
You've not only been following, you've actively added your own idea right in the middle of the clean up celebrations. I hadn't picked up on that earlier.
You're right. Mea culpa, as I acknowleged in post #69. Understanding my own questionable motives in contributing to the din has given me reason to question the whole process. Hence my recent comments and concern.
BTW, none of what I've said is meant to be taken personally by anyone. It's just business.
Perceived to be rational is what I'll say to that. There was two complaints as I understand it:
- Delayed schedule.
I'm pretty sure Phil knew the new time-line had shifted massively when the decision was made to shift to OnSemi.
- Preferential input of excessive/undesirable features.
This seems rude no matter how you look at it. Chip is liking the improvements and how well they are fitting in. The suggestions are coming in partly as feedback from the successes. Even Ken is saying that some of what he's seen he likes.
You would have reason to say rational if Ken or Chip were saying the design needed immediate closure.
To whatever extent my comments are perceived as rude, I apologize. I felt it necessary to express myself frankly, because I wasn't sure the message was getting through.
Featuritis can be an addiction. And when we get together with our featuraholic buddies to talk about more features, it creates an endless, self-sustaining cycle, not unlike those of other addictions. The danger is that the activity becomes an end in itself. What I'm trying to say is that it's time to sober up, not necessarily that the features that have been added are bad. It's just that maybe feature Q is a good idea and will make the P2 better than what we have. But once that's added how about R, S, T, U, ... ? Well you get the idea. None of those features count for anything if there's no physical IC to manifest them. And there won't be as long as the door remains ajar for yet more suggestions. And, as a corollary, the P2, when completed, will never be as good as it might have been if the dev cycle had been extended just a little while longer. See what I mean?
I'm just as prone as anyone to confuse activity with accomplishment. I do it all the time. But then I wake up hung over and think to myself, "Migosh, this has been going on now for how many years?" Maybe it's time to sober up and get with the twelve-step program to recovery.
Comments
It seems that many novel chips died this way, perhaps because the companies making them had over-blown expectations. The bean counters said "Nope!" after too short a time.
But back to the subject at hand.
<toughlove>Chip, you've opened the P2 dev to public input. I hate to say it, but what you've gotten are a bunch of sycophants who say they love you for entertaining their wild fantasies, but will they respect you in the morning? Unless you deliver a finished product -- and soon -- I doubt it. Moreover, if you expect Parallax to profit from the P2, these are not the people you need to be listening to. These guys are not your friends, nor the friends of a company and its employees that hope to profit from your efforts. They're hobbyists and, at best, low-volume users. What do your potential OEM customers want that other semiconductor companies are not providing? Do you have any idea?
I've been in business since 1976. Try as I might, I've yet to find a customer who will pay me for projects I start but do not finish. Even Parallax, in all their amazing, open-arms generosity, demands more from me for remuneration than a half-baked idea. (If anybody knows of a more gullible company, please email me. Don't post it here: I want to get to them first!)
Anyway, you did a bang-up job on the P1, working in virtual obscurity and focused on a singular vision for a chip that turned out to be amazing. Maybe it's time to go back to that mode of operation, to shun the forum entirely, to turn inward, and to recover the same vision for the P2 that you had seven years ago. Then just get it done.
I'm sorry to be so frank in such a public venue, but I'm just not sure that the reality of the situation has captured your full attention. I really want to see you and Parallax succeed with the P2. But there needs to be some imminent closure, or it just ain't gonna happen.</toughlove>
-Phil
We all know there is a schedule and that schedule still on course.
PS: You're a smart person, I'm actually a bit shocked to see you posting so narrowly.
I guess I didn't receive the memo.
-Phil
Good point ... goes looking in the 4000 posts ...
It's not blather. Quite rational actually.
As far as I understand P2 progress is currently waiting on a time slot for the next possible shuttle run. That is not until March or April. So playing around with ideas here is not adding delay.
Having said that there are many "friends" here advising that the design be frozen very soon to allow us to get on with a good lot of testing without changes breaking peoples code every day.
Chip is a sensible chap. He seems to have great skill in sifting through the myriad of ideas that turn up here and making something elegant of of the good ones. We are confident the P2 design is not going to wrecked at the last moment.
You know, that post was a tad insulting to all those who have posted suggestions here with the best of intentions.
-Phil
Of course people post ideas here with some degree of selfishness, after all they are suggesting something they want themselves. That's not all together bad. We trust that out of that melee of possibly conflicting ideas and self interests will come a really neat product.
Well, I feel great about the project. I took things about as far as I knew how, and then all these helpers showed up with a bunch of great ideas that I didn't have, and the project was strengthened immensely. We're now headed for a way better chip than we were on course for.
I've been visualizing the synergy on the forum like a gold dredging operation that we all fell into together, kind of accidentally. Now we've got tons of high grade ore coming into our sluice and we are standing on the side of the thing pulling off one fantastic nugget after the next. We're all getting rich in ideas and someday, hopefully soon, we'll have a real chip that embodies all this discovery.
I guess it's a question of whose self-interests are being served by this process. If the creative whims of multiple forumistas -- regardless of their intentions -- do not align with market realities, then I would contend that those whims do not deserve an audience, much less consideration that may delay the roll-out of an actual product.
-Phil
I can understand some aspects of your post, but please please may we not end up with and OEM driven Coldfire, Arm etc. I'm counting on Parallax for this much...
I get your sentiment to a point, but I think it's kind of against the direction that Parallax has decided to go. I also think that maybe you overestimate the negative impact on the changes happening now on the delivery date while ignoring the positive impacts. Especially since some of them will make it more likely to be sooner (less chance of failing a run), and making it more likely to be better for Parallax's commercial and educational customers. There are also things that need to be done besides Chip working on the verilog for the cores.
Chip has said several times that the P2 has been made much better because of his working with others instead of alone.
In any case, it is my understanding that even if Chip made no changes to the Verilog except those required for the new process being used, that it wouldn't change the schedule for doing synthesis or getting another run going. So Why not do changes that will make the chip better, given the time? Especially the changes that improve the chips chances of success!
Roy
Also, as much as I know you don't care for C/C++, the educational and commercial customers (Parallax's) want it, and making the P2 better at that is a win.
-Phil
What market realities exactly?
If we ask the current world market what they want they will say they want cheaper, bigger, faster ARM processors. Exactly the thing Chip does not want to make. Exactly the market Parallax could not possibly compete in.
Market realities. Pah. We know nothing of the market realities for the P2. There is no other such product to compare to. Except perhaps XMOS.
We have to leave the judgment of the P2's market realities to Chip and Ken.
-Phil
Anyway, it's past my bedtime, I've got a robotics class to teach tomorrow, and I was counting on doing my lesson plan in the morning.
-Phil
"Who are they?"
Exactly. We out here have no idea. Perhaps some wild speculation. And neither is it any concern of ours, except that individually we would all like to get hold of the chips at some point.
As I said, it's for Ken and Chip to worry about. It's their product, their company and their livelyhood.
From statements Ken has made I gather they have a good finger on the pulse of potential customers.
It was not always over-blown expectations - some chips were ahead of their time, in silicon terms, but came out on the wrong side of the transition to Flash. Yes, you can be too early.
Others floundered because the software was abysmal, and the Chip vendors failed to grasp that side of the coin.
Oh well, This seems to be part of being involved in the P2 project.
If all the participants on this forum were surveyed on what P2 instructions they would
use from the current list available and the results were compared, I'm sure no two lists would match.
We all have different plans for using P2 and different skill levels.
Some people will never use video, some will never use multi-tasking, some will never use grey codes..etc
Chip was once asked what he thought people would do with the P2.
IIRC he said "I don't know, it's up to their imagination" or words to that effect.
I've been working on this P2 project since April on DE0 and later DE2 as well.
Since September have shifted to full-time P2 development/testing.
Until you use the "BEAST" it's hard to describe how GREAT the P2 is.
I detect a bad vibe about the BCD discussion on another thread.
I have posted multiple software solutions to the problem and suggested possible instruction additions.
These additions are based on real experience running code in the P2 FPGA emulators.
Most of the motivation behind these are code size driven not speed.
I did not start that thread but participated in it's discussion.
I certainly can't make Chip do what I say and I wouldn't expect him to do so.
"If ideas aren't floated their never discussed and therefore maybe lost forever."
Ozpropdev
Here's the key post for schedule - http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/125543-Propeller-II-update-BLOG?p=1222240&viewfull=1#post1222240
Obviously not a hard deadline but Beau has plenty to deal with at the moment so that Chip has time to add features.
It would seem you were also being a tad facetious - http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/125543-Propeller-II-update-BLOG?p=1223778&viewfull=1#post1223778
You've not only been following, you've actively added your own idea right in the middle of the clean up celebrations. I hadn't picked up on that earlier.
I wouldn't know the details but there is a change of fab and a variant of process.
I know you do Chip, and it is great to see!
I really like where the P2 is converging personally. I only wanted to communicate I could understand Phil's rational concern. I've personally accepted this project as not being standard in any way, and the parts of my experience that would make me feel worry about it don't apply. I think this chip is going to be great! And I believe in your ability to steer the ship. I'm not sure everybody can or will see that, and I understand the reasons for it. Best everybody keep talking for the best result, IMHO.
I voiced support for Phil, because it is rational, not blather. Let's keep talking. That was my intent.
BTW, none of what I've said is meant to be taken personally by anyone. It's just business.
-Phil
Perceived to be rational is what I'll say to that. There was two complaints as I understand it:
- Delayed schedule.
I'm pretty sure Phil knew the new time-line had shifted massively when the decision was made to shift to OnSemi.
- Preferential input of excessive/undesirable features.
This seems rude no matter how you look at it. Chip is liking the improvements and how well they are fitting in. The suggestions are coming in partly as feedback from the successes. Even Ken is saying that some of what he's seen he likes.
You would have reason to say rational if Ken or Chip were saying the design needed immediate closure.
Featuritis can be an addiction. And when we get together with our featuraholic buddies to talk about more features, it creates an endless, self-sustaining cycle, not unlike those of other addictions. The danger is that the activity becomes an end in itself. What I'm trying to say is that it's time to sober up, not necessarily that the features that have been added are bad. It's just that maybe feature Q is a good idea and will make the P2 better than what we have. But once that's added how about R, S, T, U, ... ? Well you get the idea. None of those features count for anything if there's no physical IC to manifest them. And there won't be as long as the door remains ajar for yet more suggestions. And, as a corollary, the P2, when completed, will never be as good as it might have been if the dev cycle had been extended just a little while longer. See what I mean?
I'm just as prone as anyone to confuse activity with accomplishment. I do it all the time. But then I wake up hung over and think to myself, "Migosh, this has been going on now for how many years?" Maybe it's time to sober up and get with the twelve-step program to recovery.
"Hi, my name is Phil, and I'm a featuraholic."