Mr. Gracey, any SX Java on the horizon?
John Couture
Posts: 370
Ken,
Looking at the manual for the Javelin it would seem that it would be possible to port Javelin functionality·to the SX IDE seeing as the Javelin is actually an SX48.· Any thoughts?
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John J. Couture
San Diego Miramar College
Looking at the manual for the Javelin it would seem that it would be possible to port Javelin functionality·to the SX IDE seeing as the Javelin is actually an SX48.· Any thoughts?
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John J. Couture
San Diego Miramar College
Comments
Not planned at the moment. Our support plan·for the SX is as follows (not listed in order of priority):
The proposal you mention is interesting, albeit complex at least from a management standpoint. The Javelin Stamp IDE and Javelin Stamp firmware were both developed by Chris Waters, a 3rd party.·The SX-Key IDE is managed by Peter Montgomery, another consultant. Guenther Daubach handles the·SX-Key·firmware and documentation.·Even though we own the intellectual property and maintain copies of·all assets·within Parallax,·coordinating these troops·from their different locations around the world is far from trival and quite time-consuming.·We can literally wear one another down with e-mail. For this reason we choose our tasks quite carefully.·Technically, the Java functionality is designed around the Javelin Stamp hardware and IDE. The Javelin Stamp utilizes an interpreter chip, like a BASIC Stamp, but also has some compilation done by the IDE. Perhaps development or re-targeting of a Java compiler would be the best way to incorporate such functionality into the SX. Maybe this is what you propose.
But alas, it's·not planned at this point. I can't say I wish it was planned, either. We've got our hands full around here right now. I relate our current support·for Propeller with·our position·about ten years ago when we started Stamps in Class. It takes a lot of time from enthusiastic, skilled people to properly launch a new project.
If you have·a second·wish we'll let you know what·we can do.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
Parallax, Inc.
P.S. Mr. Gracey? If my·children's friends call me "Ken" you·can certainly do the same. I realize it's just for fun, though. . .
I don't think java on just an SX is feasible. The sx contains the JVM and
native methods for Virtual Peripherals. One needs to add memory to
store any program (bytecodes), so basically, recreating the javelin.
As an alternative, I did do a smallc port to the SX. This smallc virtual
machine has a smaller memory footprint than the JVM, so there
is code space and ram space enough left to store a smallc program
inside the sx, together with the smallc interpreter.
Ken,
Good news that the SX/C beta is due for release next month.
Can we sign in anywhere for beta testing?
regards peter
Instead, I would suggest either a C compiler (like the upcoming CCS compiler) or my mcc compiler (as soon as I get the SX-Key interface going I'll post a beta -- I've written almost all of the SX-Key driver, but it's as of yet totally untested).
I plan on distributing 10-20 copies of the CCS SX/C compiler for user input. You are absolutely on our list for receiving a copy of this compiler, along with Peter Vanderzee and any others who want to give it a critical review. What's different about the way we're going to handle SX/C is that the product will be somewhat "customer driven". By this I mean we won't be creating Parallax help files or books for it (like we do with SX/B) but we're certainly going to facilitate compiler and IDE improvements with CCS. I expect it to be a well-supported product, but not like you're used to with Parallax-designed software tools.
Ken Gracey
Very thoughtful reply and I agree that you have plenty in the pipeline to keep you busy. Someday I'm going to have to take a course in compiler design so that I can truly appreciate how difficult it is to create them!
Wow! SX28 proto boards. You hit a winner there. Those boards are so kool! I treat my old SX52 proto boards like gold. Thank you!
Terry has done a great job with SX/B. Keep that guy employed! He does a great job!
I'll wait on the finished version of C. I have enough trouble fumigating my own bugs without having to worry about ones in the compiler (grin). Thank you for that product because now I can work on one of my colleagues on putting this architecture to work in the classroom.
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John J. Couture
San Diego Miramar College
Sign me up! Heck, I'll even drive over to pick it up from you (I'm only about a half-hour away from Rocklin)...
>> Someday I'm going to have to take a course in compiler design so that I can truly appreciate how difficult it is to create them!
Much depends on the language in question; and what was used to construct the compiler. In it's current version, mcc's lexer is only 127 lines long; and it's parser (including it's header file) is only 825 lines long; but these were written with flex and bison (which make the task MUCH easier). The SX codegen, however, is 1660 lines long; and it's moderately dense code at that. This is for a language that was deliberately designed to be simple -- there is no support for structures, unions, pointers, function pointers, static variables, multiple types (byte, word, etc), or any sort of OOP constructs; and the compiler does not yet have any warnings or semantic error checking (although, some of that will be added), or any sort of optimizing engine (source-symbolic, machine-peephole, or otherwise).
Compare that to a recent version of gcc, the download of which is in the neighborhood of 30MB, compressed.
Post Edited (hammerhead74000) : 8/9/2006 4:52:30 AM GMT
A few years ago, ok about 16, I used a program called JUMP to convert Java byte code to Motorola Dragonball assembly. This would then run on the very first generations of the Palm Pilot. The task wasn't too hard I suspect because Motorola byte codes and java byte codes are similar. My guess is that the same thing could be done with the SX chips also. No interperter needed. This will limit what Java type syntax is available but it should work.
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John R.
8 + 8 = 10
I'm look forward to discover the new SX/C compiler.