I'll have to have at least one for my collection. I also would be most interested in a proto-board...I would get one just to run demos and see what others were doing. I think the P2's true possibilities are beyond my needs - but, I thought that about the Propeller when it first appeared.
Then, there is always the Super S4 or Super ActivityBot 360 - 2! Ha!
Are there any estimates on price point yet? Have I missed that?
I suppose the answers you are getting to your question is tied up in the key word of the title with the word "a"
Now the real question is whether anyone is planning to use it in production or simply perhaps what kind of boards are you designing for the chip itself.
Besides various production boards I will probably make a couple of different development boards but I don't believe in placing prototyping areas on the board itself since it gets messy if you have to change or repair things. I'd rather have pin headers for final modules or prototyping modules which sometimes are a bit of DSPTH matrix board cut to size with some socket headers.
I'm part of a 3D printer project and we are very excited to use the P2!
We are revising a previous design which uses a STM32F4.
We are wanting to do a lot more with the P2 than we have with the original board.
The Smart pins, extra RAM and improved performance all play in to our desire to use the P2.
I'm also excited to have Tachyon, which will allow us to interactively experiment with the design as we go without having to do a deep-dive into a new ASM.
Iterative, interactive development is a HUGE plus!
I'm also excited to have Tachyon, which will allow us to interactively experiment with the design as we go without having to do a deep-dive into a new ASM.
Iterative, interactive development is a HUGE plus!
Just doing some tests and single operand kernel instructions take 17 cycles for one to one ops or 41 cycles for most two to one operations such as + etc. That means 106ns or 256ns at 160MHz in the final silicon. Rapid development coupled with rapid execution!
TAQOZ# LAP 2* LAP .LAP 17 cycles = 212ns ok
TAQOZ# 12 34 LAP + LAP .LAP 41 cycles = 512ns ok
I'm in the hobbyist category also, and will certainly be in the market for a P2 dev board.
Though my spare time has been thin lately, I've managed to keep the USB demo current with the latest FPGA code and have been checking out Cluso's and Peter's work with the bootROM code (P123-A9 board). I have been exploring the monitor and Forth, but I have yet to get a hardware setup together for testing SD card boot.
I am with Phil in that the P1 serves all of my needs and going above that, I venture to other devices. However, I agree with many about the need for a breakout/dev board that is simple and easy to utilize. I would expect to see something like the Prop BOE or Activity board with a larger breadboard or prototyping space. Do not restrict the size to the typical 3x4 format. Versatility comes first, not form factor. The goal is sales and use, not conforming to an old standard.
Any break out board needs to be a DIP. Something that is breadboard friendly, with just the minimum of extra components on it to get the P2 to run. All I/O should be available.
It also has to be free. P2 chip on a board required to use it should cost the as a P2 chip on it's own.
Any break out board needs to be a DIP. Something that is breadboard friendly, with just the minimum of extra components on it to get the P2 to run. All I/O should be available.
It also has to be free. P2 chip on a board required to use it should cost the as a P2 chip on it's own.
How many pins will that DIP need? More than 64 to make all of the P2 pins available.
This means we will need to create a market, unless we plan on selling each of you a chip for $1M each
I believe you already have plenty of market segments available, but I think you will have to prove that the P2 chip is worthy of of their time and energy to incorporate it into their upcoming products or upgrades to their old products.
I don't know anything about your marketing strategy, but I think about such things.
Now that you will soon be into production... What are the strong points of the P2 compared to competitors in various market segments and what are the weak points of the P2 compared to competitors in various market segments. Be honest in this evaluation, within corporate meetings.
How can the P2 compete against the competitors in the various uC market segments?
1. List the ones you can beat up, within various segments.
2. List the ones with the highest sales in units sold within various segments.
3. Combine those two lists as a cross reference and compete against the uC that you know you can beat up, that maintains the highest units sold, within a given market segment.
4. Go to battle and take that market segment from them.
5. The strong, P2 in this case, should survive.
6. Go after other market segments with the same strategy.
I have never really been to vocal about this, but now that you have a HUGE investment on the line. I do not think the big boys will take Parallax to seriously, unless they have top notch software to support their product. I am just saying...
EDIT: Of course the final price must also be compared when doing the evaluations above.
EDIT: And yes, I do agree with you to some extent...
This means we will need to create a market,
EDIT: To my knowledge, the P2 will be very unique, which absolutely gives you the ability to create unique market segments, but that is not the P2's strong point. The strong point of the P2 will be versatility!
EDIT: If Parallax can combine versatility with price, then I truly believe they can become a winner, with the P2 investment.
I'm no engineer... nor artist... but what about having something like the FLiP module (40 pin dip) with the additional 32 I/O pins available through a 2x16 female header mounted on the top?
That might leave enough real estate on for the status led's. I personally could do without the P26, P27, TX, and RX led's.
Taller, yes. But my breadboards always look like a rat's nest anyway.
Probably not useful for production use, just evaluation and testing.
If C on P2 does not smell like the current PropGCC zombie, I might get interested. So if Prop2C is still alive and well maintained some years after P2 was released, we can talk about this again.
I am with Phil in that the P1 serves all of my needs and going above that, I venture to other devices. However, I agree with many about the need for a breakout/dev board that is simple and easy to utilize. I would expect to see something like the Prop BOE or Activity board with a larger breadboard or prototyping space. Do not restrict the size to the typical 3x4 format. Versatility comes first, not form factor. The goal is sales and use, not conforming to an old standard.
Any break out board needs to be a DIP. Something that is breadboard friendly, with just the minimum of extra components on it to get the P2 to run. All I/O should be available.
All of this points to more than one development PCB. - it looks like 2 or maybe even 3.
Being able to connect to a breadboard is on the list, but there are many ways to do that. This is how adafruit connects the BBC MicroBit to a breadboard.
Other existing, very high volume, boards that Parallax should look very closely at, are the Raspberry Pi Zero, and the BBC Micro:Bit
Those are certainly "not conforming to an old standard", and both give a widely known connector and PCB form factor
If you look at many of the RF modules out there, they often have edge based pins that allow direct SMD mounting, in volume production.
Some manage 0.1" and edge pins.
The minimal P2 board will need 5V-in (Micro-USB?), switching regulator to 1.8V, clean 3v3, Flash, and a decent clock source. (sub-ppm clock sources are sub $1)
The largest P2 board can actually do something useful, and a good way to get broad attention here I think is to target instrumentation/metering. Here is another take on a MCU board, note the decision to include a OLED display.
OLEDs are now sub $2, in modest 0.96" 128x32 sizes, and sub $4 in 1.3", 128x64, which means the board can become stand-alone measurement useful.
That's the minimal-cost-but-useful-display pathway, ie something you can include on every board, at low BOM impact.
A converse pathway, is to add a larger LCD Touch display, for more MMI use, but that's more development needed, and hard to nail down stable supply. Example is STM32F769I-DISCO
I'm immediately buying a couple breakout boards just to give to some of my co-workers to finally convince them to stop wasting their time with those other microcontrollers.
If C on P2 does not smell like the current PropGCC zombie, I might get interested. So if Prop2C is still alive and well maintained some years after P2 was released, we can talk about this again.
Zombie? I prefer to call it a kludge, but zombie isn't bad either. I hope it doesn't take years for the P2 to get real GCC support. In the meantime a zombie kludge is all there is.
I plan to buy P2's. Just hope I can figure out how to properly power, decouple, heat sink and solder them. As for P2 testers, I don't know about the last week or so, but I think Brian, ozpropdev, has done as much as anyone (not counting Chip, of course) and reported the most glitches. I'm thankful for his pair of eyes looking over Chip's shoulder. And you guys working on the boot rom and/or SD card stuff have really come together here during the final push. Those of us hoping to buy actual silicon are grateful.
I don't think of it so much as buying chips, that's for the production people to worry about, I mainly think in terms of new designs that are now possible with P2
I am really looking forward to working with this chip especially with the A/D capabilities and of course the smartpins. To refer to the assembly instructions simply as an instruction set or an ISA is a bit misleading as some of those instructions are a whole sub-culture in themselves. I'm referring to many different things such as the streamer, the smart I/O, Cordic, XBYTE, SETQ, AUGx, ALTx, REP, etc etc and also the best boot ROM that I have ever seen, one that can load from a variety of source, includes a debugger, and interactive extensible language TAQOZ, all in a tiny 16kB ROM.
Bit-bashing I/O on a ARM is an unwieldy exercise in bit-banding and never as fast as the CPU can go either whereas the P2 makes I/O so simple and so fast. I know ARM very well and believe me, the P2 is a much better embedded real-time processor IMO.
Don't forget the _RET_
This makes a big difference in both reduced code and faster execution.
Amazing the few little tweeks these things can do to existing code.
I absolutely will buy a few P2's. I will be needing all those additional I/O pin... they will eliminate the need for pin expanders for my control module. I am sure I also will also need some of that added RAM. I love the P1, but it's not difficult to run it out of memory. There are ways around that, but it's difficult for the less experienced hobbyists, such as myself.
I also gotta love the fact that the P2 is going to run an expanded version of Spin. So, we already will know how to program it, with a few (minor?) changes.
HOWEVER, I am assuming that a board for the chip will also be available around the same time as the release?
The P2 is going to be the go-to chip for running battery powered robots. Am I right, or what? I might actually start one.
I've had an idea for a P2 in a hobby project of mine for a long time now, so I will look at what dev boards become available. However, although I used to buy directly from Parallax in the past, I haven't bought anything since the low-cost international shipping option went away. Currently it's prohibitive, and unfortunately "local" re-sellers charge as if they're selling gold. So unless other options appear I will have to be without, and find other options for what I had in mind.
If C on P2 does not smell like the current PropGCC zombie, I might get interested. So if Prop2C is still alive and well maintained some years after P2 was released, we can talk about this again.
Zombie? I prefer to call it a kludge, but zombie isn't bad either. I hope it doesn't take years for the P2 to get real GCC support. In the meantime a zombie kludge is all there is.
I don't want to put words in yeti's mouth, but I read "zombie" as referring to the P1 version of PropGCC, which hasn't been updated for a long time and hence could be considered, if not dead, somewhat undead. (As opposed to your fresh work on p2gcc.)
Comments
Then, there is always the Super S4 or Super ActivityBot 360 - 2! Ha!
Are there any estimates on price point yet? Have I missed that?
Now the real question is whether anyone is planning to use it in production or simply perhaps what kind of boards are you designing for the chip itself.
Besides various production boards I will probably make a couple of different development boards but I don't believe in placing prototyping areas on the board itself since it gets messy if you have to change or repair things. I'd rather have pin headers for final modules or prototyping modules which sometimes are a bit of DSPTH matrix board cut to size with some socket headers.
We are revising a previous design which uses a STM32F4.
We are wanting to do a lot more with the P2 than we have with the original board.
The Smart pins, extra RAM and improved performance all play in to our desire to use the P2.
I'm also excited to have Tachyon, which will allow us to interactively experiment with the design as we go without having to do a deep-dive into a new ASM.
Iterative, interactive development is a HUGE plus!
J
Just doing some tests and single operand kernel instructions take 17 cycles for one to one ops or 41 cycles for most two to one operations such as + etc. That means 106ns or 256ns at 160MHz in the final silicon. Rapid development coupled with rapid execution!
Though my spare time has been thin lately, I've managed to keep the USB demo current with the latest FPGA code and have been checking out Cluso's and Peter's work with the bootROM code (P123-A9 board). I have been exploring the monitor and Forth, but I have yet to get a hardware setup together for testing SD card boot.
It also has to be free. P2 chip on a board required to use it should cost the as a P2 chip on it's own.
I believe you already have plenty of market segments available, but I think you will have to prove that the P2 chip is worthy of of their time and energy to incorporate it into their upcoming products or upgrades to their old products.
I don't know anything about your marketing strategy, but I think about such things.
Now that you will soon be into production... What are the strong points of the P2 compared to competitors in various market segments and what are the weak points of the P2 compared to competitors in various market segments. Be honest in this evaluation, within corporate meetings.
How can the P2 compete against the competitors in the various uC market segments?
1. List the ones you can beat up, within various segments.
2. List the ones with the highest sales in units sold within various segments.
3. Combine those two lists as a cross reference and compete against the uC that you know you can beat up, that maintains the highest units sold, within a given market segment.
4. Go to battle and take that market segment from them.
5. The strong, P2 in this case, should survive.
6. Go after other market segments with the same strategy.
I have never really been to vocal about this, but now that you have a HUGE investment on the line. I do not think the big boys will take Parallax to seriously, unless they have top notch software to support their product. I am just saying...
EDIT: Of course the final price must also be compared when doing the evaluations above.
EDIT: And yes, I do agree with you to some extent...
EDIT: To my knowledge, the P2 will be very unique, which absolutely gives you the ability to create unique market segments, but that is not the P2's strong point. The strong point of the P2 will be versatility!
EDIT: If Parallax can combine versatility with price, then I truly believe they can become a winner, with the P2 investment.
That might leave enough real estate on for the status led's. I personally could do without the P26, P27, TX, and RX led's.
Taller, yes. But my breadboards always look like a rat's nest anyway.
Probably not useful for production use, just evaluation and testing.
Walter
Header boards are what I'd purchase initially. A few dozen I'd imagine.
All of this points to more than one development PCB. - it looks like 2 or maybe even 3.
Being able to connect to a breadboard is on the list, but there are many ways to do that.
This is how adafruit connects the BBC MicroBit to a breadboard.
Other existing, very high volume, boards that Parallax should look very closely at, are the Raspberry Pi Zero, and the BBC Micro:Bit
Those are certainly "not conforming to an old standard", and both give a widely known connector and PCB form factor
If you look at many of the RF modules out there, they often have edge based pins that allow direct SMD mounting, in volume production.
Some manage 0.1" and edge pins.
The minimal P2 board will need 5V-in (Micro-USB?), switching regulator to 1.8V, clean 3v3, Flash, and a decent clock source. (sub-ppm clock sources are sub $1)
The largest P2 board can actually do something useful, and a good way to get broad attention here I think is to target instrumentation/metering.
Here is another take on a MCU board, note the decision to include a OLED display.
OLEDs are now sub $2, in modest 0.96" 128x32 sizes, and sub $4 in 1.3", 128x64, which means the board can become stand-alone measurement useful.
That's the minimal-cost-but-useful-display pathway, ie something you can include on every board, at low BOM impact.
A converse pathway, is to add a larger LCD Touch display, for more MMI use, but that's more development needed, and hard to nail down stable supply. Example is STM32F769I-DISCO
I am really looking forward to working with this chip especially with the A/D capabilities and of course the smartpins. To refer to the assembly instructions simply as an instruction set or an ISA is a bit misleading as some of those instructions are a whole sub-culture in themselves. I'm referring to many different things such as the streamer, the smart I/O, Cordic, XBYTE, SETQ, AUGx, ALTx, REP, etc etc and also the best boot ROM that I have ever seen, one that can load from a variety of source, includes a debugger, and interactive extensible language TAQOZ, all in a tiny 16kB ROM.
Bit-bashing I/O on a ARM is an unwieldy exercise in bit-banding and never as fast as the CPU can go either whereas the P2 makes I/O so simple and so fast. I know ARM very well and believe me, the P2 is a much better embedded real-time processor IMO.
This makes a big difference in both reduced code and faster execution.
Amazing the few little tweeks these things can do to existing code.
I also gotta love the fact that the P2 is going to run an expanded version of Spin. So, we already will know how to program it, with a few (minor?) changes.
HOWEVER, I am assuming that a board for the chip will also be available around the same time as the release?
The P2 is going to be the go-to chip for running battery powered robots. Am I right, or what? I might actually start one.
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I don't want to put words in yeti's mouth, but I read "zombie" as referring to the P1 version of PropGCC, which hasn't been updated for a long time and hence could be considered, if not dead, somewhat undead. (As opposed to your fresh work on p2gcc.)