Your premise would be a good one if Parallax and the P-1 were serious players in the embedded world, but they're not. Hence I doubt if the industry cares one bit what Parallax says about their long awaited and ever morphing P-2.
We don't care what the "industry" says. They think Intel x86 is a good idea, they think ARM is a good idea.
If we listened to "industry" back in the day there is only a market for, what was it the IBM guy said, ten computers in the world?
None of this is "true". That is why Chip does what he does. That is why the RISC V guys do what they do. That why Andreas Olofsson does what he does with the Epiphany chip. And so on.
I am very glad there are such free thinkers in the world.
You're right in a sense, mass appeal doesn't make something valid.It doesn't matter what they think. But if you're a commercial entity like Parallax it does matter because it determines whether you keep the product in question or develop newer versions.
Over the decades I've watched all sorts of things and companies come and go in the computer industry from Forth, Fuzzy logic and neural net micros(I have a drawer full of them and other digital miscreants) to various programming languages composed by the unhinged that came and slowly sank into digital oblivion.
In the end the market place will determine whether the P-2 is fit to survive. It's never pretty nor fair though.
I don't know but Parallax Inc. has been with us since 1987. They are not a fly-by-night start up with one world killing "good idea" riding on start up venture capital and hype. As is the fashion now a days.
As far as I know they are still profitable and happy. Clearly they do something right.
Maybe the P2 is a dismal failure in terms of the world market. Or even in terms of actually never making a return for Parallax.
.. We had a few disconnected pins, the need for a ground here and there, and a couple of small power supply adjustments. These changes have all been identified and are being wrapped into the final board which Chip needs to finish the Verilog properly. Daniel tells me the layout changes can be completed within a day and I've checked that we have all the components for fabrication, so this shouldn't take too long.
Which FPGA size variant is the final choice for the 1-2-3 FPGA ?
Does that mean the older, Monster FPGA board(s) you used, have reached the end of their useful lives.?
Clearly there is merit in having a common test platform that a group can productively test the same code on.
The manual layout is well underway with Treehouse Designs and we have regular weekly meetings with them where we do the basic project management stuff - reviewing scope, progress, budget, delays, etc and make adjustments to the plan.
Will that manual portion of the die require a test-cell/shuttle run, or are they 'confident enough' to morph into a large, final-sign-off device ?
@jmg
I believe the Altera Cyclone V device used on the 1-2-3 board is a 5CEBA7F23C8N.
Chip hinted he was still going to support the Nano,DE2 and IIRC he also purchased a BeMicro CV as well.
I agree, and we won't let negativity dictate what and when we wish to communicate, how we feel about what we're doing, and what benefits it will bring to our customers.
Our work is visible for everybody to see* and the P2 will be your chip because you're sticking with us through the whole process.
Ken Gracey
*P2 core isn't public yet, but at the right time we'll make it available one of several ways.
Actually, you've provided updates at irregular intervals throughout the design process but they've been in the form of saying what steps are done and what remain and an estimated schedule for when things might be done. However, the update *I* am really interested in is one that describes the architecture of the new incarnation of P2. In particular, I'd like to know what the instruction set looks like and whether hub execution made it into the hardware or not. I'm not pushing for it either way but I'd like to know what to expect.
Your premise would be a good one if Parallax and the P-1 were serious players in the embedded world, but they're not. Hence I doubt if the industry cares one bit what Parallax says about their long awaited and ever morphing P-2.
The industry certainly does care about innovation, any innovation. I suggest that you don't dismiss Parallax and the Propeller 2 so lightly. In the world of business - big fish eat little fish. So they are always on the outlook for easy prey.
"Serious players in the embedded world"?? It is all business, it doesn't get more serious. It is just the egomanics at the top that dismiss the rising stars as not being serious.... positional rhetoric with real fear that one day the king of the hill will fall.
Actually, you've provided updates at irregular intervals throughout the design process but they've been in the form of saying what steps are done and what remain and an estimated schedule for when things might be done. However, the update *I* am really interested in is one that describes the architecture of the new incarnation of P2. In particular, I'd like to know what the instruction set looks like and whether hub execution made it into the hardware or not. I'm not pushing for it either way but I'd like to know what to expect.
I would too. That stuff is exciting and interesting as we can begin to envison what to use the P2 for. It is also awkward as any changes might create a round of disappointments. So we might just have to wait for the finalized version being commited to production.
Your premise would be a good one if Parallax and the P-1 were serious players in the embedded world, but they're not. Hence I doubt if the industry cares one bit what Parallax says about their long awaited and ever morphing P-2.
There was a lot of that attitude from the marketing departments of IBM, DEC, and the other players in the mainframe/mini industry back in the 70's about those 8 bit "toy" computers. Having seen how quickly IC's grew from simple logic gates to more complex functions I thought that attitude was short sighted. Still do.
The big attractions of the P1 for me were the low cost and ease of getting started. The short learning curve along with the simplicity and power of programming with Spin and PASM was icing on the cake. If the P2 continues that tradition it should do very well.
Doesn't matter what a bunch of us hobbyists think about Parallax and the P-2. What matters is will the P-2 be comparable to various ARMs, PIC32's, DSC's, to get the sort of design wins and sales volumes needed for Parallax to recoup their investment.
Still I very much doubt that TI, NXP or Freescale care one wit what Parallax does. There is no reason for them to care.
But that's all rather moot since the P-2 isn't out and won't be for at least a year or so.
What matters is will the P-2 be comparable to various ARMs,
I know where you are going with this but consider, if one wanted the Prop 2 to be comparable to the ARM, PIC32, MIPs etc one would have to design it to be like them.
Well, there is absolutely no point in Parallax trying to "clone" that kind of architecture. There are thousands of them already. It's very unlikely parallax could make one so much better than what exists that anyone would be interested.
If they want to make a micro-controller they have to do something different otherwise there is no point. It would be very boring and none of us would be here discussing it.
Unless that is, they want to make a RISC V chip. Id' be all over that
I guess we should all roll over and accept that big companies and big capital are in charge of the world and we should get out of the way.
Still I can't help but wonder why one chooses to post here and be so dismissive of Parallax's efforts unless some insecurity creates annoyance.
As it is, the big companies have gotten into the hobbyist market with the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi because they have had inventories of product that they really don't know what to do with. There is a surplus of microcontrollers available today and the industry is depending on the hobbyist to purge the backlog by creating new uses and providing ideas that the industry can't seem to come up with on thier own.
And so, I contend that the industry indeed is interested in new and different ideas; while they also are interested in making any small independent upstart feel worthless and unwelcome.
You seem to be serving industry... intentionally or unintentionally.
...if one wanted the Prop 2 to be comparable to the ARM, PIC32, MIPs etc one would have to design it to be like them.
Well, there is absolutely no point in Parallax trying to "clone" that kind of architecture. There are thousands of them already. It's very unlikely parallax could make one so much better than what exists that anyone would be interested.
If they want to make a micro-controller they have to do something different otherwise there is no point. It would be very boring and none of us would be here discussing it.
That is exactly right. Why Bellicose Bob carries on...and on...and on...is a mystery to me.
The very differences between the Prop and other chips are what have built the niche it occupies. The P2 can only enlarge that niche. I use ARM Cortex chips all the time, but there are many instances where a Propeller is the only way to go, like when something has to be bomb-proof and has to go out the door, now!
Rather than obsess over hypotheticals and the Parallax business plan, why doesn't BB get busy and make something? He clearly doesn't use the P1 or else he'd be excited for a P2. There is no more sure way to ferret out the goats and the trolls than that.
1) The "big company" in the Arduino scene is ATMEL. I doubt that sales of their chips in Arduinos is anymore than a fraction of a percent of their production.
2) Similarly the "big company" in the Raspberry Pi scene is Broadcom. Again, I don't think the Pi is more than a blip on their radar. Plus, it turns out that the device we see in the Raspberry Pi is not any kind of "backlog" in their inventory. It did not exist before Eben Upton twisted it around to his desires.
1) The "big company" in the Arduino scene is ATMEL. I doubt that sales of their chips in Arduinos is anymore than a fraction of a percent of their production.
2) Similarly the "big company" in the Raspberry Pi scene is Broadcom. Again, I don't think the Pi is more than a blip on their radar. Plus, it turns out that the device we see in the Raspberry Pi is not any kind of "backlog" in their inventory. It did not exist before Eben Upton twisted it around to his desires.
Are you saying that Broadcom made the chip specifically for the RaspberryPi? How did he get them to do that?
Re: Similarly the "big company" in the Raspberry Pi scene is Broadcom. Again, I don't think the Pi is more than a blip on their radar.
Yes, even though 5+ Million; Pi's sold (to date) sounds like allot it's been more than several years of sales however, Broadcom's total revenue was $8.01 billion. just In 2013 . Also, the Broadcom part/s used in a Raspberry Pi is only a fraction of the retail cost of the unit.
re:..Are you saying that Broadcom made the chip specifically for the RaspberryPi?
The Raspberry Pi 2 SoC is a Broadcom BCM2836.
BCM2835
High Definition 1080p Embedded Multimedia Applications Processor
The BCM2835 is a cost-optimized, full HD, multimedia applications processor for advanced mobile and embedded applications that require the highest levels of multimedia performance. Designed and optimized for power efficiency, BCM2835 uses Broadcom's VideoCore® IV technology to enable applications in media playback, imaging, camcorder, streaming media, graphics and 3D gaming.
re:..Are you saying that Broadcom made the chip specifically for the RaspberryPi?
The Raspberry Pi 2 SoC is a Broadcom BCM2836.
BCM2835
High Definition 1080p Embedded Multimedia Applications Processor
The BCM2835 is a cost-optimized, full HD, multimedia applications processor for advanced mobile and embedded applications that require the highest levels of multimedia performance. Designed and optimized for power efficiency, BCM2835 uses Broadcom's VideoCore® IV technology to enable applications in media playback, imaging, camcorder, streaming media, graphics and 3D gaming.
Okay, but that still doesn't answer the question of whether it was made specifically for the Raspberry Pi. I kind of doubt it although Heater's comment made it sound like that: "It did not exist before Eben Upton twisted it around to his desires." Maybe that was supposed to say "it did exist before"?
Are you saying that Broadcom made the chip specifically for the Raspberry Pi? How did he get them to do that?
Yep. I'm saying exactly that. Except Broadcom did not know they were doing that at the time !
Don't quote me but as far as I can make out the history goes like this:
0) Eben Upton graduates in CS from Cambridge.
1) Later he is perhaps doing graduate studies but anyway is working as "admissions officer" for the CS department.
2) He observes that the young kids applying to study CS at Cambridge don't know how to program before they get there. Previous generations had been programming since they were very young and knew a couple of languages already, including assembler.
3) In 2006 he conceives the idea of a super cheap, throw away computer for kids to play on. In lieu of those old simple C64s, Sinclairs and BBC computers that were no longer available for kids to learn on. He builds prototypes, using AVR I believe, that boots into Python. This is deemed not to be attractive enough for the modern youngster. But that did set the price point.
4) Eben leaves academia and takes a job with Broadcom.
5) There he finds they are designing a GPU chip. Eben somehow convinces them to add an ARM core to the design for "unspecified business purposes". That ARM core is a very small area of silicon compared to the GPU so it gets "sneaked" in.
6) Eben redesigns his concept around this GPU + ARM core.
BINGO there we have the Raspberry Pi!
All very devious.
Then we come to the new 4 core Pi. As far as I can make out that was a kind of "skunk works" do it on your own time project within Broadcom.
Yep. I'm saying exactly that. Except Broadcom did not know they were doing that at the time !
Don't quote me but as far as I can make out the history goes like this:
0) Eben Upton graduates in CS from Cambridge.
1) Later he is perhaps doing graduate studies but anyway is working as "admissions officer" for the CS department.
2) He observes that the young kids applying to study CS at Cambridge don't know how to program before they get there. Previous generations had been programming since they were very young and knew a couple of languages already, including assembler.
3) In 2006 he conceives the idea of a super cheap, throw away computer for kids to play on. In lieu of those old simple C64s, Sinclairs and BBC computers that were no longer available for kids to learn on. He builds prototypes, using AVR I believe, that boots into Python. This is deemed not to be attractive enough for the modern youngster. But that did set the price point.
4) Eben leaves academia and takes a job with Broadcom.
5) There he finds they are designing a GPU chip. Eben somehow convinces them to add an ARM core to the design for "unspecified business purposes". That ARM core is a very small area of silicon compared to the GPU so it gets "sneaked" in.
6) Eben redesigns his concept around this GPU + ARM core.
BINGO there we have the Raspberry Pi!
All very devious.
Then we come to the new 4 core Pi. As far as I can make out that was a kind of "skunk works" do it on your own time project within Broadcom.
That's interesting. I had assumed that the Raspberry Pi just used a Broadcom settop box chip. Those typically have a GPU, USB, network interfaces, etc and an ARM CPU.
As I say the GPU used in the Raspi was planned by Broadcom with no ARM core. Only Eben pushed it in there for "unspecified business purposes". He of course had a purpose in mind:)
Sadly I can't find any links to this history any more. It's all in the many videos of presentations by and interviews with Eben around the net.
re: of whether it was made specifically for the Raspberry Pi.
I don't think so. In an interview with Eben Upton a few years ago, he states that they were looking at a range of Broadcom chips to see which one was the best suited to use for the Raspberry Pi. During that process one of the chip ended up with a ARM in it. Because the chip has the Arm core they decided to use it. However, he does not claim to have any influence in putting the Arm in the chip. It just sounds like great timing to me.
Sounds like the Raspberry Pi Foundation guy was telling a story. No company in their right mind would stick a chunk of logic in their chip for some unspecified business purposes. I'm sure there were many reasons for putting in the ARM core, and not just because someone on the team requested it for their own purposes, which they would not disclose. The story doesn't make any sense.
In short says "In about 2008 we had in our hands, based on a mobile phone graphics processor that we'd developed in Cambridge, we had a device which we thought was almost good enough. This was a device which didn't have an open processor......And then we were very lucky that a couple of years later a version of broadly the same chip appeared that I had managed to cram an ARM11 into the corner of - there are advantages to being on the chip design team"
Comments
Your premise would be a good one if Parallax and the P-1 were serious players in the embedded world, but they're not. Hence I doubt if the industry cares one bit what Parallax says about their long awaited and ever morphing P-2.
If we listened to "industry" back in the day there is only a market for, what was it the IBM guy said, ten computers in the world?
None of this is "true". That is why Chip does what he does. That is why the RISC V guys do what they do. That why Andreas Olofsson does what he does with the Epiphany chip. And so on.
I am very glad there are such free thinkers in the world.
Over the decades I've watched all sorts of things and companies come and go in the computer industry from Forth, Fuzzy logic and neural net micros(I have a drawer full of them and other digital miscreants) to various programming languages composed by the unhinged that came and slowly sank into digital oblivion.
In the end the market place will determine whether the P-2 is fit to survive. It's never pretty nor fair though.
I don't know but Parallax Inc. has been with us since 1987. They are not a fly-by-night start up with one world killing "good idea" riding on start up venture capital and hype. As is the fashion now a days.
As far as I know they are still profitable and happy. Clearly they do something right.
Maybe the P2 is a dismal failure in terms of the world market. Or even in terms of actually never making a return for Parallax.
Ken and Chip will learn from that if need be.
Which FPGA size variant is the final choice for the 1-2-3 FPGA ?
Does that mean the older, Monster FPGA board(s) you used, have reached the end of their useful lives.?
Clearly there is merit in having a common test platform that a group can productively test the same code on.
Will that manual portion of the die require a test-cell/shuttle run, or are they 'confident enough' to morph into a large, final-sign-off device ?
La,la,la.....I can't hear you...la,la,la......
...happy thoughts...happy thoughts.....happy thoughts......breath slowly.....in........out......in.....out.......
Just patiently waiting on the sidelines until something is ready for you (and Chip) to tell us.
Meanwhile, there is plenty to do around here
I believe the Altera Cyclone V device used on the 1-2-3 board is a 5CEBA7F23C8N.
Chip hinted he was still going to support the Nano,DE2 and IIRC he also purchased a BeMicro CV as well.
P.S. Thanks for the update Ken, much appreciated!
The industry certainly does care about innovation, any innovation. I suggest that you don't dismiss Parallax and the Propeller 2 so lightly. In the world of business - big fish eat little fish. So they are always on the outlook for easy prey.
"Serious players in the embedded world"?? It is all business, it doesn't get more serious. It is just the egomanics at the top that dismiss the rising stars as not being serious.... positional rhetoric with real fear that one day the king of the hill will fall.
I would too. That stuff is exciting and interesting as we can begin to envison what to use the P2 for. It is also awkward as any changes might create a round of disappointments. So we might just have to wait for the finalized version being commited to production.
There was a lot of that attitude from the marketing departments of IBM, DEC, and the other players in the mainframe/mini industry back in the 70's about those 8 bit "toy" computers. Having seen how quickly IC's grew from simple logic gates to more complex functions I thought that attitude was short sighted. Still do.
The big attractions of the P1 for me were the low cost and ease of getting started. The short learning curve along with the simplicity and power of programming with Spin and PASM was icing on the cake. If the P2 continues that tradition it should do very well.
Doesn't matter what a bunch of us hobbyists think about Parallax and the P-2. What matters is will the P-2 be comparable to various ARMs, PIC32's, DSC's, to get the sort of design wins and sales volumes needed for Parallax to recoup their investment.
Still I very much doubt that TI, NXP or Freescale care one wit what Parallax does. There is no reason for them to care.
But that's all rather moot since the P-2 isn't out and won't be for at least a year or so.
Well, there is absolutely no point in Parallax trying to "clone" that kind of architecture. There are thousands of them already. It's very unlikely parallax could make one so much better than what exists that anyone would be interested.
If they want to make a micro-controller they have to do something different otherwise there is no point. It would be very boring and none of us would be here discussing it.
Unless that is, they want to make a RISC V chip. Id' be all over that
I guess we should all roll over and accept that big companies and big capital are in charge of the world and we should get out of the way.
Still I can't help but wonder why one chooses to post here and be so dismissive of Parallax's efforts unless some insecurity creates annoyance.
As it is, the big companies have gotten into the hobbyist market with the Arduino and the Raspberry Pi because they have had inventories of product that they really don't know what to do with. There is a surplus of microcontrollers available today and the industry is depending on the hobbyist to purge the backlog by creating new uses and providing ideas that the industry can't seem to come up with on thier own.
And so, I contend that the industry indeed is interested in new and different ideas; while they also are interested in making any small independent upstart feel worthless and unwelcome.
You seem to be serving industry... intentionally or unintentionally.
That is exactly right. Why Bellicose Bob carries on...and on...and on...is a mystery to me.
The very differences between the Prop and other chips are what have built the niche it occupies. The P2 can only enlarge that niche. I use ARM Cortex chips all the time, but there are many instances where a Propeller is the only way to go, like when something has to be bomb-proof and has to go out the door, now!
Rather than obsess over hypotheticals and the Parallax business plan, why doesn't BB get busy and make something? He clearly doesn't use the P1 or else he'd be excited for a P2. There is no more sure way to ferret out the goats and the trolls than that.
I might be inclined to agree with you except.
1) The "big company" in the Arduino scene is ATMEL. I doubt that sales of their chips in Arduinos is anymore than a fraction of a percent of their production.
2) Similarly the "big company" in the Raspberry Pi scene is Broadcom. Again, I don't think the Pi is more than a blip on their radar. Plus, it turns out that the device we see in the Raspberry Pi is not any kind of "backlog" in their inventory. It did not exist before Eben Upton twisted it around to his desires.
Yes, even though 5+ Million; Pi's sold (to date) sounds like allot it's been more than several years of sales however, Broadcom's total revenue was $8.01 billion. just In 2013 . Also, the Broadcom part/s used in a Raspberry Pi is only a fraction of the retail cost of the unit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcom
re:..Are you saying that Broadcom made the chip specifically for the RaspberryPi?
The Raspberry Pi 2 SoC is a Broadcom BCM2836.
BCM2835
High Definition 1080p Embedded Multimedia Applications Processor
The BCM2835 is a cost-optimized, full HD, multimedia applications processor for advanced mobile and embedded applications that require the highest levels of multimedia performance. Designed and optimized for power efficiency, BCM2835 uses Broadcom's VideoCore® IV technology to enable applications in media playback, imaging, camcorder, streaming media, graphics and 3D gaming.
http://www.broadcom.com/products/BCM2835
Don't quote me but as far as I can make out the history goes like this:
0) Eben Upton graduates in CS from Cambridge.
1) Later he is perhaps doing graduate studies but anyway is working as "admissions officer" for the CS department.
2) He observes that the young kids applying to study CS at Cambridge don't know how to program before they get there. Previous generations had been programming since they were very young and knew a couple of languages already, including assembler.
3) In 2006 he conceives the idea of a super cheap, throw away computer for kids to play on. In lieu of those old simple C64s, Sinclairs and BBC computers that were no longer available for kids to learn on. He builds prototypes, using AVR I believe, that boots into Python. This is deemed not to be attractive enough for the modern youngster. But that did set the price point.
4) Eben leaves academia and takes a job with Broadcom.
5) There he finds they are designing a GPU chip. Eben somehow convinces them to add an ARM core to the design for "unspecified business purposes". That ARM core is a very small area of silicon compared to the GPU so it gets "sneaked" in.
6) Eben redesigns his concept around this GPU + ARM core.
BINGO there we have the Raspberry Pi!
All very devious.
Then we come to the new 4 core Pi. As far as I can make out that was a kind of "skunk works" do it on your own time project within Broadcom.
Sadly I can't find any links to this history any more. It's all in the many videos of presentations by and interviews with Eben around the net.
I don't think so. In an interview with Eben Upton a few years ago, he states that they were looking at a range of Broadcom chips to see which one was the best suited to use for the Raspberry Pi. During that process one of the chip ended up with a ARM in it. Because the chip has the Arm core they decided to use it. However, he does not claim to have any influence in putting the Arm in the chip. It just sounds like great timing to me.
I quote it because I read it in a story from a Raspberry Pi Foundation guy.
I'm trying to find that again so I can link to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5KEiuTT_E8
Turns out the "unspecified business purposes" was actually "unspecified business reasons" spoken by Eben himself. You can read the transcript here:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=38472
In short says "In about 2008 we had in our hands, based on a mobile phone graphics processor that we'd developed in Cambridge, we had a device which we thought was almost good enough. This was a device which didn't have an open processor......And then we were very lucky that a couple of years later a version of broadly the same chip appeared that I had managed to cram an ARM11 into the corner of - there are advantages to being on the chip design team"
Cool or what?