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Propeller has ruined my teaching! — Parallax Forums

Propeller has ruined my teaching!

Martin HebelMartin Hebel Posts: 1,239
edited 2006-07-27 13:04 in Propeller 1
I teach 8051 ASM off campus at various military bases as part of our degree program, and man I'm having a rough time at it!!

Wading through slide after slide of registers and peripheral hardware is driving me nuts. The 8051 and most all controllers have so much base knowlege to be learned before even geting to an application has never frustrated me so much. I spent 6 hours today discussing the basics - program counters and op codes - all good, but with hours of timers and registers and more registers and other hardwareto come....ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I've been spoiled by the Prop! Even in lecture I keep mentioning the Prop........

Next semester on campus we can use the Propeller :P

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Martin Hebel
Southern Illinois University Carbondale - Electronic Systems Technologies

Personal Links with plenty of BASIC Stamp info
StampPlot - Graphical Data Acquisition and Control

Comments

  • HarleyHarley Posts: 997
    edited 2006-07-22 23:24
    Martin Hebel said...
    I teach 8051 ASM off campus at various military bases as part of our degree program, and man I'm having a rough time at it!!
    Wading through slide after slide of registers and peripheral hardware is driving me nuts. The 8051 and most all controllers have so much base knowlege to be learned before even geting to an application has never frustrated me so much. I spent 6 hours today discussing the basics - program counters and op codes - all good, but with hours of timers and registers and more registers and other hardwareto come....ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
    I've been spoiled by the Prop! Even in lecture I keep mentioning the Prop........
    Next semester on campus we can use the Propeller :P

    It is good to hear from various people how the Propeller is affecting their lives. It sure sounded like a great approach, IMHO.

    Propellers on campus next semester, hopefully on many campuses. yeah.gif

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    Harley Shanko
    h.a.s. designn
  • Kaos KiddKaos Kidd Posts: 614
    edited 2006-07-23 01:23
    The ease of programming the propeller is somewhat getting my uninspirable 17 y/o back into electronics. He spends quiet hours watching me 'fiddle' about with the propeller, asking very few questions. I left the dev board with the blinkled hardware on it, and the prop tool loaded on the laptop. Today I got a call from him, telling me he's gotten the leds to bink at different and programmable rates! (This was something I was playing with before I left Friday on a business trip).
    No calls for support, just my 'chick scratch notes', and the propeller tool (loaded with the blinkled program and the modified vta_text), he's got it running. It's cool to see the lights come on for kids, (literly in this case), I just wish I was home and not in Boston.

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    Propeller + Hardware - extra bits for the bit bucket =· 1 Coffeeless KaosKidd

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  • Oliver H. BaileyOliver H. Bailey Posts: 107
    edited 2006-07-23 12:48
    Hi Gang,
    The Propeller is a real marvel for many reasons but one of my favorites is how Chip designed out the Interrupt. Co-operative multiprocessing in hardware goes a long way to eliminate much of the complexity of software. But what if you could add a full USB HID interface to the Propeller, or Wireless USB board to the Propeller without writing any code. That project is not only a reality, it will be availabel before late fall. I'm in the middle of a book on just such a tool and th boards are in design right now. I think they will make adding some types of peripherals to the Propeller almost instant. I'll provide more information to anyone who is interested when I can.

    Oliver
  • Graham StablerGraham Stabler Posts: 2,510
    edited 2006-07-23 13:42
    The thing I like about the propeller is the ease in which you can get something so professional out of it. If you look at the Graphics_Demo.spin code, once you realize that quite a bit of the "funny looking stuff" is just setting up the graphics there is so little code producing so much cool output. The graphical output gives instant gratification on your programming progress and is great fun.

    I have an little attache camera case, I'm going to be turning it into a little mobile developer station, LCD TV in the lid, flip out mini keyboard micro mouse. Possibly even a 6v lead acid battery, great for showing people stuff, great for taking into the workshop and great for taking to work for lunch time sessions.

    Graham
  • El PaisaEl Paisa Posts: 375
    edited 2006-07-23 15:33
    Thats I have saying all along,

    the graphics are the best part of the propeller.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2006-07-27 13:04
    I know I am a dreamer and it is way too early to consider such a thing but....

    It would be wonderful if SPIN had a version created to program my PC. It is a very comfortable language and the color coding really helps me recognize what is what.

    On the other hand, I wish I had a course available that worked through the 8051 because it is the origins of so many concepts and so much jargon. One needs the background in order to just communicate with others. It is a similar situation with knowing something about many languages.

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    "If you want more fiber, eat the package.· Not enough?· Eat the manual."········
    ···················· Tropical regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

    Post Edited (Kramer) : 7/29/2006 12:36:34 PM GMT
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