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Parallax mentioned on the The Amp Hour — Parallax Forums

Parallax mentioned on the The Amp Hour

JonMJonM Posts: 318
edited 2017-01-08 07:32 in General Discussion
I was listening to the latest Amp Hour episode, #330 from 1/5/2017, where Chris Gammell (no Dave this week) interviews Zach Fredin of NeuroTinker to discuss the Neurobyte project and I got surprised when I hear Parallax mentioned as Zach was discussing some of the work he does in the education area. The mention basically had to do with the Arduino UNO in a Parallax box, but at least there was a mention of the company. This is at about 1:14:05 into the recording.
theamphour.com/330-an-interview-with-zach-fredin/

The current version of the NeuoTinker Neurobyte uses an ATMEL/Microchip ATtiny88 but Zach mentioned moving away from the chip due to the limitations of the ATtiny88 so perhaps this could be something best done with a Propeller.

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Thanks for the heads up on that. The AmpHour went out of my mind over Christmas I'm quite a few episodes behind now...
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2017-01-09 17:26
    Parallax has been previously discussed on The Amp Hour. Although I didn't care for some of Dave's comments. He clearly doesn't know much about Parallax. You can see some of what I said in the comments, but I just realized that the podcast for this episode seems to have been removed so you can't hear Dave call Parallax a fly-by-night company and risky to take chances on Parallax microcontrollers. I think there were a few other things.

    http://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-30-funding-fusion-is-not-futile/
  • Chris,

    Yeah, Dave has gotten into trouble a few times based on what he spouts either on the AMP Hour or the EEVBlog. He is a character for sure, but certainly not the final word on all things Embedded.

    I like Embedded.FM as well with Elecia White and her husband Chris White and there is a bit of a tongue in cheek rivalry between the two podcasts.
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2017-01-09 17:51
    I have been on Embedded.fm before. :nerd:

    http://embedded.fm/episodes/2015/2/18/89-i-have-new-batteries
  • Me to Chris,
    I would consider that someone who is un-informed, to me that verges on slanderous. I will get my law book out, or maybe it's a job for the lawyer on CD.

    Sorry, it just burns me up when someone thinks they are held in such reverence. To belittle a community as fine as ours.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Chris Savage
    ...Dave call Parallax a fly-by-night company and risky to take chances on Parallax microcontrollers
    For sure Dave knows nothing of Parallax. I mean, who in industry does?

    To be honest I only discovered Parallax when thumbing through the huge catalog of the local Elfa distributor looking for micro-controllers. There was the Propeller. Immediately I dismissed it as useless. 32 bits and 8 cores is neat and all, but what can you do in 512 LONGs? And that talk of "COGs" made no sense at all. And who is Parallax anyway?

    It was another year or so before I felt the urge to buy a DIP Prop and see what I could do with it.

    Perhaps we should send Dave a Propeller board driving 32 servos or some such. To show what it's about.


  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    Heater,

    That's actually a great idea.

    I think the first time I heard about the propeller was the Z80/CP/M emulation.
    Then I came across Jac's Propeddle, where the Propeller impersonated RAM, ROM, peripherals and interfaces. That's when I saw the light.
  • I have been on Embedded.fm before. :nerd:

    http://embedded.fm/episodes/2015/2/18/89-i-have-new-batteries

    Chris, Yeah, I remember that episode. Actually I found that one while looking for any reference to Parallax on the podcast, so it was great hearing you speak of Parallax and of the work you were doing on a show like Embedded as well as hearing Chip on 2 episodes before you. I've won Elecia's book from the show so it is worth the listen for me.
  • Wow, thanks for the heads up!

    I love the Amp Hour and the Embedded.fm podcast. They seem to compliment each other as one seems more hardware driven, and the other software. Another podcast you guys may enjoy, if you don't already know about it, is the MacroFab Engineering podcast: https://macrofab.com/blog/podcast/. One of the hosts actually uses the Propeller in a lot of his projects and talks about it fairly frequently.

    I like Heater's suggestion of sending Dave a Propeller dev board that he could perhaps open in his mailbag segment. It's a shame that Parallax doesn't get more publicity, it's such a great company.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    It had better be doing something out of the box that the Propeller shines at. Else Dave is liable to miss the point. Hence the servo suggestion.
  • Heater. wrote: »
    It had better be doing something out of the box that the Propeller shines at. Else Dave is liable to miss the point. Hence the servo suggestion.

    Great idea! We need something to show the true power of the Propeller.
  • Heck, the purpose-specific Texas Instruments LM629 motion-control chip still goes for £32.50 (Mouser UK). A single P1 can out-perform FOUR of these devices, using 6 cogs.

    I need to get my posterior in-to-gear and have this up and running soon.

  • GenetixGenetix Posts: 1,754
    edited 2017-01-11 05:52
    Linus's Turbulence is pretty awesome; it would need to be pre-loaded into the EEPROM though.
  • Yeah, if anyone plans to send something to Dave in his mail bag, it better be a good rep of the Parallax brand and easy to set-up and configure. The dude is not a software guy and seems to not have any love for development boards. I had seen him rip the TI Connected Launchpad to shreds since the web based software as a bit glitchy. However, somehow he did get the motivation to set-up a Raspberry Pi cluster though.
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