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Market Space Potential? — Parallax Forums

Market Space Potential?

T ChapT Chap Posts: 4,223
edited 2014-08-01 05:31 in Propeller 2
Any ideas on the range of market space the chip will be suitable for? I am curious to see what new possibilities open up that were not possible with the P1. One area that I am hoping for is LCD touch screen controllers. The ease of cranking out a GUI on an LCD is nice on the P1, but parking the bitmaps for rapid access is a chore. Any prognosticators?

Comments

  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2014-07-30 23:58
    That will depend on the final silicon RAM size, but Chip was talking about NCO based DMA style streaming, using CLUT. so certainly the HW should allow quite high thru-put.
    The next details still tbf, will be if the smart-pins blocks can manage the sync and clock bursts, and whether QuadSPI data flows are supported. Being able to grab Font info quickly from a large Flash device, would be a plus.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-31 02:52
    Anything that needs a shed load more I/O pins. With, what is it 80 I/O pins?, I will finally be able to drive my 7 segment LCD panels that require 52 pins or so.

    Anything that requires a shed load more RAM. I will finally be able to run my Z80 emulation and CP/M on a Prop without an external RAM. Not to mention also running the 80 by 40 text terminal display. Nirvana!

    If they would only push the PII as a super simple but highly configurable I/O expander, lots of GPIO, PWM, SPI, analog, etc. to the three million owners of Raspberry Pis and all the Beagle board and Arduino owners that would be a huge potential market right there.
  • ctwardellctwardell Posts: 1,716
    edited 2014-07-31 03:00
    Heater. wrote: »
    With, what is it 80 I/O pins?

    I'm pretty sure it is 64 I/O unless I missed a change. I recall Bill H. asking for 80, but unless the package has changed I think it is still 64.

    C.W.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-07-31 03:04
    OK, 64 sounds more like it from my vague recollections of P2 dev history. Still that's enough for what I described. Even both at the same time!

    So here is a market for two Propller II chips already. A couple more and we will surpass IBMs initial estimates of world wide computer sales :)
  • Peter JakackiPeter Jakacki Posts: 10,193
    edited 2014-07-31 22:30
    Oh, I've got a couple of biggies, one very different from what we have used Props for before but one I feel that the P2 will handle very nicely indeed, but until I have proven it and it's commercial I can't say, because it's a big and bad market out there :)

    But certainly there are a lot of the <1K volume product that will work well with the P2, and though they will run LCD screens nicely that is not where it can really compete unless it's a highly integrated solution that exploits the unique advantages of the P2. I look forware to running Ethernet harder and faster including WiFi in various products, and of course powered by Tachyon! (Sorry C guys, maybe someone can write a F2C converter!).
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-08-01 05:31
    Peter,
    ...maybe someone can write a F2C converter!
    Yep. Like "Translating Forth to Effecient C" :
    http://mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at/papers/ertl&maierhofer95.ps.gz
    http://mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/forth2c.tar.gz

    Of course people who do such things are now languishing in mental hospitals so we don't hear from them much:)
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