Have you created any dual-Propeller projects?
cbmeeks
Posts: 634
in Propeller 1
I know the "goal" is to reduce chip count, squeeze every cycle, etc. But have you created (or are aware of) any projects that actually use two or more Propellers?
I was brainstorming (I do that a lot...everything in my brain is a storm...lol) last night about a retro computer that had an entire Propeller just for video/SRAM support. It would have a real Z80/6502 as the CPU and another Propeller for glue logic, I/O, etc.
So CPU, Propeller x 2 and SRAM. Four chips total (plus passive components, connectors, etc.).
Anyway, what are some dual Propeller designs you've seen?
I was brainstorming (I do that a lot...everything in my brain is a storm...lol) last night about a retro computer that had an entire Propeller just for video/SRAM support. It would have a real Z80/6502 as the CPU and another Propeller for glue logic, I/O, etc.
So CPU, Propeller x 2 and SRAM. Four chips total (plus passive components, connectors, etc.).
Anyway, what are some dual Propeller designs you've seen?
Comments
btw, if you can wait for the P2 it will eat that project easily in one chip, no external SRAM required and fast Z80 emulation in a cog so in fact you could have multiple "Z80s" or 6502s. Too easy.
Running a Z80 emulator on a Prop that runs CP/M which communicates with a terminal screen provided by a second Prop. The third Prop was unused. No need for an actual Z80 chip.
Oh the board? Search here for "TriBlade", a three DIP Prop board with static RAM chips by Cluso.
So, how fast is "high-speed"? Did it sort based on size/color?
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/162813/l-abbaye-des-morts-ported-to-dual-propeller-board
I've read quite a bit on the Prop Z80 emulator. I've often considered using the ZiCog in my Spectrum/Coleco system. And I still might. Especially if it's easier than interfacing all of the control lines of a real Z80. How is the speed compared to a real Z80? My minimum speed would need to be 3.58Mhz (4 MHz ideal).
That is awesome! I will certainly check that out.
I have some videos I did at the time, the endless army of pills just come flying down the belt feeding into the 12 channels and a "match-stick" photo-diode and matching modulated IR transmitter capture the profile of the pill as it tumbles through with banks of pneumatic solenoids popping away like a machine gun, blocking here, dropping there, two bottles at a time in a constant quick march cycle of fill and move. Other comparable counters were either much slower or very much more expensive using cameras and a dedicated PC per channel!
I never really did benchmark ZiCog. In it's former incarnation as PropAltair emulating only an 8080 it was just about speed comparable. A lowly 1 Mhz or so. I gave up tweaking and optimizing it as it was fast as a CP/M machine, reading files from a disk image on SD card is a quicker than the floppies we had back in the day. And tweaking the processor emulation was a bit of a loosing battle when using external RAM and a memory manager COG to get the required 64K RAM.
You may have more luck with PullMoll's qZ80 emulator for the Prop. He implemented a couple of Z80 instructions that I neglected, not needed for running CP/M software. EX and EXX comes to mind. qZ80 has been used to build Sinclair and other machine emulations. I have no idea about the speed of qZ80.
ZiCog will come back to life when the Prop II is out....
Prop II will be a game changer. But I still will use real 6502's. You will have to pry the 6502 out of my cold, dead hands!
I have several of Rayman's older 4.3" touchscreens which use the Prop as a controller and I often use a second Prop on my touchscreen projects. Here's one of my touchscreen projects.
The installed terminal firmware is from Briel Computers.
http://hackaday.com/2009/07/25/propeller-based-terminal/
http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=31
Actually, I have boards for Tachyon, pfth, and PropForth that can connect with the terminal. Also, I have full duplex RS-422 as an alternative so the terminal can be quite distant from the actual Propeller Forth board.
youtube video
Connecting a zillion breadboarded 40-pin DIP Props together without any software framework and purpose is indeed a "prop" in the true sense of the word. To the newbie it probably looked awe inspiring. But we do miss Humanoido and his entertaining love for "props"
Wonder which world he is in now?
It's a project that took 10 years to design and build - a giant thinking machine built by author, using Parallax Propeller chips and expansions. It became alive with a semi-cognizant aware state of AI intelligence in 2011. It has over 150,000 processors and is now a supercomputer.
here: http://humanoidolabs.blogspot.fi/p/about-big-brain.htm
I was never sure if that was a work of art, a joke, or simple insanity.
Silly me.
Edit: Wait a minute that is blogspot in Finland. Humanoido could be my neighbour. I never knew.
However, I took the best bits and made separate pcbs.
The RamBlade is a tiny board with a propeller, 512KB of SRAM and a microSD and runs my PropOS, ZiCog, Catalina C, and any other binary you want to load. It has just 2 spare pins typically used for serial, but I also have 1pin code that will drive a PS2 Keyboard and monochrome composite video.
I have the CpuBlade which is a 1"x1" pcb with propeller, regulator, eeprom, xtal, and brings out all I/O pins. Its a base for any project. I have an unreleased new version at 0.8"x1" with the same features and a few more.
And a 0.8"x1.3" version that includes a microSD - pcbs and all parts ready to go excepting the microSd socket
And we have a commercial product that combines a RamBlade equivalent (runs Catalina C) with another prop for handling multiple I/Os, and a third propeller chip handling an LCD and keypad in a remote box.
I have three of your TriBlade boards. One is completely assembled, one has a few parts mounted on it, and the other is completely blank as I recall. I can't remember who gave them to me but I've had them for a while and I don't think I'm going to have time to do anything with them. If anyone is interested, send me a PM.
The upper Prop is slave for sensor and actuator interface. Many pins are dedicated to multiplexing the i/o to select various functions, analog volts, 4-20mA, digital state or output, i2c, rs232, SDI12. The lower Prop acts as the master and handles data parsing and communication via GPRS, Digimesh or USB. The two props talk to one another via serial, and the master Prop can reprogram the slave. It was a big effort! That each Prop pin is equivalent to others was a great help in making the layout.
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/131538/50-tetraprop-tm-boards-now-ready-to-ship/p1
And here I was feeling guilty about using two props for a retro computer. HAHA!
Local Hive thread.
I can't really say what it is for, you might be able to guess but please don't
Graham
Have one Propeller set up as a dedicated math co-processor. This would off-load number-crunching from the over-all mission of the other Propeller and greatly speed up things.
Floating Point co-processor
I guess it could be interesting to do some testing and see if it is worth going off chip to do some math on another Propeller. I guess you'd have to prove that it would "greatly speed things up".
I was aware of that Floating Point co-processor - the uM-FPU 3.1. @19.95.
But I was thinking an entire math library could eventually evolve, not merely a focus on Floating-Point several other high-demand services because eight CPUs at 20Mhz just might be more powerful that one CPU at 29.84Mhz and different projects might require a differeny array of maths libraries. With a Propeller, an SDcard could hold added math libraries. Forth might be good choice of processor language for speed and modular use of libraries.
Nontheless, the uM-FPU 3.1 certainly is ready-to-go and has some excellent features, like two 12-bit ADCs ready to use.