Hi everybody,
mpcour
Posts: 2
Hi,
I didn't find any specific New user thread so here is my "Hello folks".
I'm new to the Parallax Propeller use.
Trying to find my way in the many posts out there (and the lot of broken links in Google searches - due to a new Forum I understand).
Anyway I'm Happy to visit and appreciate everybory previous entries.
I apologize for my poor english (French user from La Rochelle).
I didn't find any specific New user thread so here is my "Hello folks".
I'm new to the Parallax Propeller use.
Trying to find my way in the many posts out there (and the lot of broken links in Google searches - due to a new Forum I understand).
Anyway I'm Happy to visit and appreciate everybory previous entries.
I apologize for my poor english (French user from La Rochelle).
Comments
In prior years we had a larger number of customers in France, primarily for our educational products and the BASIC Stamp. How did you get introduced to the Propeller?
Ken Gracey
Your English is certainly better than my French :thumb:
-MattG
(golly that Ken is fast on the keyboard!)
No worries about the language. You are already doing better than many native English speakers here and besides we don't understand eachother half the time anyway
Do you have any project(s) in mind that will use a Propeller?
Traditionally the first thing anyone does with a new micro-controller is to get it to flash a LED. This proves at least that the MCU, the loader hardware and the programming tools work. It's the "Hello World" program of MCU land.
With the Propeller the first thing to do is to get it to flash 8 LEDs from each of it's 8 cores. Then you are set to do to wonderful things.
My English is good, but typing is not so good.
We may be able to help with some of the broken links, as we have gone through the same thing.
I too am a new user, but will need some hand holding and a few swats to the lower part of me.
JIM
You'll definitely get the hand-holding request satisfied. Welcome to the forums Jim!
Ken Gracey
I keep a list of links in my "index" (it's not alphabetical so I'm not sure why I call it an index).
I try to keep the links up to date. Post #3 has links to Propeller tutorials. I pretty much just list links to things I find interesting so the list is far from complete.
I've listed links to many of my projects in post #2. I think there may be a couple of projects which don't involve the Propeller but the vast majority of my projects are Propeller related. IMO, it's a really fun chip to program.
If there's a particular topic you're interested in, let us know and we can probably help you find information about it.
I don't suppose either of you (mpcour or Jim) are interested in robotics? The Propeller is a great microcontroller for robotics projects and if either of you have a robot, I hope you give a figure-8 a try.
Welcome to the forum both of you.
Some answers :
-@Ken I discovered the Propeller while browsing on the Internet. I missed it when it was introduced. Since retiring I make myself an "accelerated tour" of the current microprocessors and FPGA's out there. So went the turn of Propeller...
-@Heater I already did the "Hello world" blinking led on a self-made basic propeller board. This chip is one of the simplest to use : power, quartz, 0.1 uF decoupling cap and "voila" it's running! Yes you must have either a Propplug or an USB to Rs232 adapter, eventually an eeprom but that's not much again. Then you try to use the damned thing .... and the community is your life saver
-@Duane Great "index" indeed. Thanks for doing it. Well, I just follow robots far enough to have a polite interest on their projects
Ah great, you have started with the Prop the same way I did. With that big DIP chip who needs any dev board? I did not even have the quartz initially.
One very nice thing about the Prop is that you don't even need the RS232/USB adapter or any other special programming dongle. I started out with a transistor circuit driven from an actual serial port. Today we can program Props via direct logic level serial connections to Raspberry Pi's or other machines.
The 8 LEDS on 8 COGs thing is a bit of an eye opener. Being able to get code started in COGs is fundamental to the Propeller and surprisingly easy to do. Then you realise how easy it is to mix and match software objects, how they don't mess up each others timing, how you don't have to mess around with interrupts or worry about priorities etc etc.
When you have problems, just post on the Propeller Forum. There is plenty of help available there for newbies and seasoned Propheads alike.
As a suggestion for a cheap and simple prop interface, buy a Nokia LCD 5110 board from eBay. It will attach to 8 adjacent prop pins directly. You can supply power and ground to the LCD from these I/O pins directly. Preferably, don't turn the backlight on. I have posted code to interface this somewhere on the forum. Search Nokia 5110 LCD and hopefully you will find it. Otherwise ask and I will search for it.