tutorials for QuickStart board?
atexit8
Posts: 13
I have done some Googling, but it seems that the ones mentioned at https://sites.google.com/site/rototypeit/home/microcontrollers/parallax-p8x32a-quickstart-board-tutorial
are broken and giving me Error 404 - Not Found.
The current Parallax website has the LED Demo and then links to a slew of application notes.
are broken and giving me Error 404 - Not Found.
The current Parallax website has the LED Demo and then links to a slew of application notes.
Comments
It's too bad about those dead links. It would be nice if Parallax fixed them.
I have links to Propeller tutorials on post #3 of my index.
The great thing about Arduino is the plethora of tutorials.
Parallax really needs to fix those broken links.
Very disappointing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140408081137/http://www.parallaxsemiconductor.com/quickstart2
https://web.archive.org/web/20140408080037/http://www.parallaxsemiconductor.com/quickstart3
https://web.archive.org/web/20140408081154/http://www.parallaxsemiconductor.com/quickstart4
https://web.archive.org/web/20140408081904/http://www.parallaxsemiconductor.com/quickstart5
https://web.archive.org/web/20140408075957/http://www.parallaxsemiconductor.com/quickstart6
It is nice that Parallax has you around to do the documentation for them.
What You said + not having easily accessible tutorials seems to show a decidedly biased approach against students. For a company that claims to want a place in the educational market the lack of easily accessible tutorials speaks volumes contrary to that claim.
Tim
http://learn.parallax.com/
A tab with the link is right at the top of this page. There is also a link at the top of the parallax.com main page.
Tom
Thank you very much!
There is a zip file near the bottom of the page that has those Tutorials as PDFs along with other QuickStart documents and code.
It doesn't have the Tutorial code files though. Get those from Post #12.
http://www.robotshop.com/en/parallax-propeller-p8x32a-microcontroller-quickstart.html
Duane, you should add this stuff to your list.
Agreed.
I need to figure out how to organize the list better. It's kind of getting out of control.
There are also the stickies in the Propeller forum with lots of links to tutorials.
One of the demo programs showing how to use multiple cogs has an error. The QuickStart5 code uses the same global variable "Counter" in all three cogs launched. This can be fixed by making "Counter" a local variable to the method "Twinkle".
In this same program, I think it would have been better to just use cog #0 for one of the loops.
Instead of the original program:
QuickStart 5: MulticogTwinkleDemo.spin www.parallaxsemiconductor.com }} CON _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x 'Establish speed _xinfreq = 5_000_000 '80Mhz OBJ led: "E555_LEDEngine.spin" 'Include LED methods object VAR byte Counter 'Establish Counter Variable long stack[90] 'Establish working space PUB Main cognew(Twinkle(16,clkfreq/50), @stack[0]) 'start Twinkle cog 1 cognew(Twinkle(19,clkfreq/150), @stack[30]) 'start Twinkle cog 2 cognew(Twinkle(22,clkfreq/100), @stack[60]) 'start Twinkle cog 3 PUB Twinkle(PIN,RATE) 'Method declaration repeat 'Initiate a master loop repeat Counter from 0 to 100 'Repeat loop Counter led.LEDBrightness(Counter, PIN) 'Adjust LED brightness waitcnt(RATE + cnt) 'Wait a moment repeat Counter from 100 to 0 'Repeat loop Counter led.LEDBrightness(Counter,PIN) 'Adjust LED brightness waitcnt(RATE + cnt) 'Wait a momentI think this would have been a better example.
QuickStart 5: MulticogTwinkleDemo.spin www.parallaxsemiconductor.com }} CON _clkmode = xtal1 + pll16x 'Establish speed _xinfreq = 5_000_000 '80Mhz OBJ Led: "E555_LEDEngine.spin" 'Include LED methods object VAR long stack[60] 'Establish working space PUB Main cognew(Twinkle(16, clkfreq/50), @stack[0]) 'start Twinkle cog 1 cognew(Twinkle(19, clkfreq/150), @stack[30]) 'start Twinkle cog 2 Twinkle(22, clkfreq/100) 'run Twinkle cog 0 PUB Twinkle(pin, rate) | counter 'Method declaration repeat 'Initiate a master loop repeat counter from 0 to 100 'Repeat loop Counter Led.LedBrightness(counter, pin) 'Adjust LED brightness waitcnt(rate + cnt) 'Wait a moment repeat counter from 100 to 0 'Repeat loop Counter Led.LedBrightness(counter, pin) 'Adjust LED brightness waitcnt(rate + cnt) 'Wait a momentI suppose some of the changes are a mater of taste but I don't like to see a cog just left to die like the original program had it. IMO, it's easier to keep track of cogs if you use cognew and cogstop for starting and ending cogs.
I also changed some of the capitalization to match the Gold Standard style.
The only change absolutely needed was making "counter" a local variable.
In case anyone is wondering if you can flash more than one LED per cog, The LEDs are controlled this way just as an example of starting multiple cogs.
This program will flash any number of LEDs (up to 32) each at a different interval and it uses one cog. There are lots of ways of controlling lots of LEDs with a Propeller.
Doing what Parallax should be doing but isn't.
Parallax completely dropped the ball specifically to the tutorials 1-6.
There is a reason why Arduino is in the lead and Parallax isn't.
I don't think a some broken links so terrible. Unfortunately broken links go with the ever changing web.
IMO, Parallax has the best tutorials available. If you follow the "learn.parallax.com" tab at the top of the page, you'll find all sorts of tutorials.
Parallax recently made some major changes on their website and (IMO) it's still kind of hard to find all the resources they have available for the Propeller. I think with a bit more time, things will get sorted out and arranged properly.
In post #2 of my index, I have a list of projects I've done. Most of the projects use a Propeller chip. Many if not most of these projects would have been either very difficult or impossible to do with an Arduino.
I have two Rover 5 projects (here's my favorite). Both of these projects use all four quadrature encoders of the Rover 5. I've tried to find as many other Rover 5 projects as I could and I've seen lots of Rover 5 projects which use an Arduino but none of these Arduino controlled Rover 5 projects read all four quadrature encoders. Add on top of that reading six RC channels and controlling four PWM channels and most Arduinos don't have a chance of keeping up with the Propeller.
The Rover 5 Motor Driver board uses a XOR circuit to merge the quadrature encoders into a single channel to make it easier on Arduinos. Unfortunately by merging the encoder channels you lose the benefits of quadrature encoders (being able to detect direction and not reading vibrations as positive movement). As I mentioned already, reading four quadrature encoders isn't a problem for the Propeller.
Of course another big plus for the Propeller is this forum with its humbly helpful members.
What students train on today is what they as engineers design into products tomorrow.
Any company that doesn't support students isn't interested in selling product.
I am reminded of when IBM wanted a microcomputer designed the engineers used what they had been given for their own hobby computers...Intel CPUs...the rest is history.
Tim & TMT: Your constant criticism of Parallax is what speaks volumes. Sure, everything can and will be improved over time. It would be nice to hear some constructive words instead of negative ones.
While poking around the Learn site, I came across another great resource for the Propeller. The Question and Answer section.
I do agree it can be frustrating finding some materials. I think Parallax has been putting a lot of their resources into getting Propeller C more student friendly and some of the Spin support has gotten harder to find with the recent website updates.
Parallax has dropped the ball on a number of items since they introduced Propeller C and the Arduino Shield Bot last year. Parallax is not that big of a company and they are doing their best to meet everyone needs. Parallax has the best customer support I have ever seen and Ken, the president of the company, always goes out of his way when there is an issue.
Parallax has always been good to us so as Forum users we look beyond the little issues and help Parallax where we can.
Understatement of the century!!!!! This is what makes it the BEST Forum/Support site I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.
I am specifically referring to the QuickStart tutorials that they used to have but are no longer there.
In this case it is "terrible". These tutorials are targeted to the QuickStart board. I have the QuickStart board.
I like having the tutorials.
Thank goodness someone other than Parallax deemed them important enough to archive.
Yes, I'll agree. It is terrible the tutorials are nowhere to be found on the Parallax website. I tried Google to find the others but without luck. I found a few of the tutorials on my hard drive but I didn't have any not already posted.
I do have links to all the application notes in post #3 of my index. I think these were harder to find than they should be. IMO, the Propeller information was easier to find before the recent website changes.
If you need information about some particular aspect of the Propeller, make sure and ask here. One of us will probably be able to find it (though I agree, this step shouldn't be necessary).
If we had a clear, concise list of issues we could take steps to correcting them. So far I see complaints about broken links but in all the complaints it's hard to pick out specific missing files. If someone would simply e-mail support when they find a broken link we would get the link fixed and send (or link them) the file in between. As we find the problems we fix them. But remember, we don't click on the links like everyone else does. I only find them when supporting a customer directly.
And about the Arduino...that's apples to oranges. If we only had one product to support it is unlikely we would have broken links. In fact we have hundreds of products to maintain and with so many it is easy to have a few broken links. We fix them as we're made aware of them. In my opinion that is pretty good support. If we simply didn't care and never tried to fix anything I could see the complaints. But that has never been the case.
Yep! We do have some broken links to pages outside of our site, heck we may even have some broken links to pages inside of our site that we don't know about...Thanks for bringing them to our attention.
In the mean time, we'd suggest that you check out what others (above) have suggested like the "Learn" link above ( http://learn.parallax.com/ ) it's right at the top of our homepage. These are designed to get you up-and-going Quickly.
If you're just starting out with the "Propeller", "Quickstarts" is a great place to Start Propellers Quickly
-MattG
I judge from the dripping sarcasm I must have upset a sensibility.
For me the "Blue" link hardly ever gets a desired response.
I get as good or better info from searching the web about parallax products and how to use them. As far as general micro-controller circuits and applications I get much better in-depth answers from Arduino.
HAND,
Tim