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Re: Propeller and Raspberry PI/Beaglebone Powerhouse — Parallax Forums

Re: Propeller and Raspberry PI/Beaglebone Powerhouse

mklrobomklrobo Posts: 420
edited 2014-07-25 09:57 in General Discussion
:innocent: I had run across some information, that I could not believe I had overlooked;
I was playing with MathCAD, (old version), and saw some programs included with the
software. The MathCAD programs had replaced some electronic internals of a
radio in which I was familiar(filters, waveform generators, etc). This technique is also used
in the propscope, (undoubtly) in which Parallax made their pc oscilloscope.
Obviously, technology has been able to do this for sometime, but with the
Raspberry Pi and Propeller, it may be possible to replace a system, notwithstanding
the transducers and mechanical parts. The Beaglebone black has more RAM than
my Laptop! (4 GB) Comments? :innocent:

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-25 00:31
    "Comments?"

    Yes. I have no idea what you are talking about.

    We start of with your observation that one can make filters, generators in software rather than hardware. Yes that has been done for a long time.

    You mention "radio" which leads me to suspect we are going to talk about "Software Defined Radio" SDR. I believe if you search this forum you will find that has been done on the Propeller already to some level already. It has certainly been discussed a few times.

    Have a google for "Software Defined Radio", there is some fascinating stuff going on in that space.

    Then you get on to "transducers and mechanical parts" so now I don't know what we are talking about.

    Apart from the fact that, yes, a Raspberry Pi and other tiny ARM boards do have amazing processing power and the Propeller is great for real-time, real-world interfacing.

    Edit: Oh yes, and off topic for a Propeller 2 thread :)
  • dMajodMajo Posts: 855
    edited 2014-07-25 02:25
    Heater, I have understood that he wants to use the propscope with raspberry instead of PC, perhaps to make a handheld selfcontained scope.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-25 02:49
    I'm not sure how you gleaned that idea from the post but it's not such a bad idea.

    One could throw out X Windows on the Pi and use OpenGL to draw accelerated graphics directly to the frame buffer for a full screen display. I have already been playing with that set up and it's pretty fast. Would make a great scope trace display.

    Hook that up to your analog front end some how and you have a scope! Even small, hand held or portable if you can find a small HDMI or composite screen for it. There is a display comming from the Pi Foundation that hooks to the display port soon.

    Not sure if one can get data into the Pi fast enough but it might be usable.

    I have no idea about PropScope. I'm imagining a logic analyser front end in the Prop and some useless Windows only GUI connected together over serial.

    Of course there is already bitscope for the Pi: http://www.bitscope.com/pi/
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2014-07-25 03:01
    Moving this thread to "General"
  • mklrobomklrobo Posts: 420
    edited 2014-07-25 03:46
    dMajo wrote: »
    Heater, I have understood that he wants to use the propscope with raspberry instead of PC, perhaps to make a handheld selfcontained scope.
    I appreciate yours and Heaters comments. I always learn alot from ya'lls perspective. Yes, I had played with the idea with a self-contained Parallax scope. I did not
    know if that idea was "way out there". I will go back and get the examples from my MathCAD programs, and list some of the other "systemic" replacements I had
    mentioned earlier. In relation to my HP calc/propeller "tricorder", I could put a HP calculator "simulator" on the raspberry pi, and never even use the physical calculator! This would
    solve the communication problem.(no calculator at all, but all the features.) Or, best yet, run Mathematica or MathCAD on the Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone! This seems possible,
    from a memory/CPU speed point of view. What do you think?:innocent:
  • mklrobomklrobo Posts: 420
    edited 2014-07-25 03:51
    Sorry about the category miss-selection. To err is human, to forgive, divine.:lol:
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-25 04:17
    No idea about MathCad or Mathematica much. Seems like something really heavy weight and slow for a scope on a Pi. As does an HP simulator.

    All depends on what you actually want to do.
  • mklrobomklrobo Posts: 420
    edited 2014-07-25 09:57
    found a freware linux calculator ExtCalc. This (allegedly) has all the features of an HP calc, functions and all, PLUS you
    can write a C++ script to interface it to the GPIO of the Raspberry PI, which can be translated to the Propeller.
    I will try to install this on the Rapberry PI, then go from there. :lol:
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