Propeller Tool v1.05.2

Rsadeika

I am having a bit of a problem with the Tool. I have a 64 bit machine running Vista RC1 64 bit version. It seems like the Propeller Tool installs, and the FT232R USB UART installs somewhere, but Vista cannot find the new USB UART. I downloaded the R9052151 file, opened it up, but Vista complains that there are no drivers. So, does this mean I need 64 bit drivers to make this thing work, or is their another explanation. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ray

Paul Baker

The only form of Vista Windows availible and supported by Microsoft is the corporate version. The consumer version is not availible until the 30th. We have just set up our first machine running Vista but have not tested any of our software. Therefore we provide no support or fitness of purpose for any of our software running on Vista until we have the chance to test each one.

With that said, your (immediate) problem does not lie with our software but FTDI's drivers. Visit thier website to see if they have created any 64b Vista drivers.

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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer

Parallax, Inc.

John R.

Ray;

Putting a little "softer" spin on Pual's comments, there are an awful lot of people who have not even had a chance to fire up Vista, let alone the 64 bit version. I suspect that you, and a lot of other folks will have some fun for a while until everyone has more of a chance to work with the new OS, and in the case of the 64 bit versions, this may even take a bit longer.

I for one an dreading the day we have to bring in our first PCs with Vista at work. I can forsee all kinds of little minor, but annoying problems, like drivers not working, or workind "different".

Some companies have resources that can look at this stuff in the early stages, and identify potential problems, and then look again at the intermediate versions, and find the stuff that changed, and then look at the final version(s) and see what changed again. Many more companies don't have those resources (time, hardware and poeple to spare), and will be a bit behind the curve.

Those chosing to live "on the bleeding edge" will face some challenges. I used to enjoy being there, but as I've aged, I've become less anxious to lead the world through all that "fun".

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John R.

8 + 8 = 10

Rsadeika

Paul,

Thanks for the info. I went to the FTDI site, and I was happy to find some Vista drivers. Better yet, the drivers worked, so, I was able to hook up and do an 'Identify' on my setup(s). So far so good; I have not had a chance to run an actual program to see if everything is working properly.

John R.,

I am an old flatus myself, and I still enjoy a good challange now and then. I do not consider this to be cutting edge anymore, now working with a CELL processor, that might be cutting edge.

Thanks

Ray

Paul Baker

Ray, it's fantastic to hear you got it up and running, now we know it will work under 64b Vista (for at least one machine [noparse]:)[/noparse] ).

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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer

Parallax, Inc.

Oliver H. Bailey

Paul,
FYI, 64 bit Vista requires MS certified drivers. This is a new policy and only affects the 64 bit versions at this time. There is a tremendous amount of debate going on in the development community over this move. Certifying drivers is not a quick nor inexpensive feat.

There are some definite shifts going on in embedded development. One example is the amount of momentum that is being seen in support for the Eclipse platform. Because elcipse is cross platform many comanies are moving to support their development tool chains via plug ins. There are other non-Windows movements going on as well mostly open source.

There are many differences in Vista that are under-the-hood and affect drivers as well as applications. Time will tell if this is widely accepted by the development community or if other platforms become more popular.

For anyone using Vista be forewarned that user security is handled differently than in prior versions of windows. There is also a new unser mode driver layer that was not present in prior versions of this OS.

I would take a wait and see approach to this OS before diving in as it can mean many programs and devices that worked fine under 2K and XP, no longer work at all or work conditionally.

Goran (Sweden)

Have a startup problem with the Prop. IDE

When start Propeller.exe I got a message that there is "no disk in \Device\Harddisk4\DR6"

I have never had that disk!!

Could this be something that came with a download from the forum, example spin code.

I searched my harddisk for some ini file containing the above "\Device\Harddisk4\DR6"

Does the Propeller.exe have a ini file? If so where it is.

Regards Goran

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

Goran,

Do you have a memory card reader? This is a common complaint for those who do, myself included. Just click on "Continue", and you'll be fine. The problem is merely annoying — not fatal.

-Phil

Goran (Sweden)

Yes I have,

Problem understood and fixed. (removed the m-card-reader) and the message disapeard.

Thanks Phil.

Rsadeika

Just a little update on my progress with the 64 bit Vista machine. I got a chance do some small programs, light an LED, and everything seems to be working. So as of right now the Propeller Tool is behaving, or should I say that Vista is behaving. Now, the problem is bigtime, with drivers, an example, I had a USB to RS232 adaptor which I tried to use, system complains that it can not find the drivers. The cd that came with the device did not contain any suitable drivers. It seems to me that 64 bit machines have been around for more than couple of years now, and that problem should have been resolved.

Since I am going to be getting a free copy of Vista, I will probably install the real version on my laptop. Now, if I had to pay for Vista, I would have to think long and hard about updating. The only advice that I do have is, buy a computer/laptop with Vista already installed, that way you know, or it least hope that everything has been worked out.

Ray

parts-man73

I subscribe to a magazine called "Maximum PC" They focus on the lastest, cutting edge computer tech goodies. The focus alot on building high performance gaming systems.

Their most recent issue had an article entitled "Top 10 reasons not to upgrade to Vista now." The most common complaint was the unavailability of drivers.

Rsadeika said...
It seems to me that 64 bit machines have been around for more than couple of years now, and that problem should have been resolved.

The driver is designed for the operating system, not the machine. Vista is brand new, so alot of drivers haven't been ported yet. The drivers written for windows XP are not compatible with Vista.

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Brian Meade

"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night" - Edgar Poe

John R.

Hence my comments on "Bleeding Edge". My reference to "Bleeding" having less to do timeliness, more to do with where the "curve" is with resepect to all the pieces being in place for a give technology or device.

Something can be around for "centuries", but only used in a given way. When you try and use it in a different application, you may experience the "Bleeding Edge". (At least that's how I use the term.)

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John R.

8 + 8 = 10

cocokiwi

parts-man73 said...
I subscribe to a magazine called "Maximum PC" They focus on the lastest, cutting edge computer tech goodies. The focus alot on building high performance gaming systems.

Their most recent issue had an article entitled "Top 10 reasons not to upgrade to Vista now." The most common complaint was the unavailability of drivers.

Rsadeika said...
It seems to me that 64 bit machines have been around for more than couple of years now, and that problem should have been resolved.

The driver is designed for the operating system, not the machine. Vista is brand new, so alot of drivers haven't been ported yet. The drivers written for windows XP are not compatible with Vista.

·Yeah!·· I have XP 64···· and have yet to find 64bit drivers for my two HDTV Tuners!· ATI and ASC

· MY other problem is 64 TRYING to INSTALL· 32bit drivers on devices I have installed in XP that have SAID they Will NOT supply for 64bit!

··· Go figure!



Cheers Dennis

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http://people.delphiforums.com/cocokiwi/Image/picture.jpg

crgwbr

I'm running Vista 64b on a 10 Ghz Quad-core machine. Prop Tool v1 and the original drivers worked fine for me.

just my 64 bits,
crgwbr

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NerdMaster
For
Life

Rsadeika

New Update,

Since I installed the FTDI drivers, Vista is starting to go into a random computer freeze. The screen is visible but nothing is responding. I have an Acer Aspire 5000 laptop with the AMD Turion64. So, now I do not know what is the culprit, the new driver(s), Vista, or both: with the computer freezing up now at least two times a day, this is·starting to remind me of the WIN95 days.

I am almost ready to give up on Vista 64 bit, WinXP pro 64 bit, and go back to Ubuntu 64 bit. At least with Ubuntu I did not have the problems that I am now experiencing. And of course I will not be able to run the Propeller tool, or the SX IDE, or BasicStamp IDE, or ...

Ray

Fabian Nunez

No need to be so drastic.· I've been using 32 bit Vista for about a month or so, and·all the driver problems I had·were resolved by the manufacturer providing newer drivers.· Also, in my experience a lot of 32 bit XP drivers will work with 32 bit Vista, basically anything other than video or audio card drivers.· Right now, I'm using the XP drivers·for my HP USB laser printer and my UPS, and they both seem to work fine.

Driver support for 64 bit OSs seems to be a low priority for device manufacturers, and is likely to remain that way for at least all of this year.· Part of the "blame" lies with Intel and AMD providing such good support for 32 bit code on their 64 bit CPUs;· I suspect it will take some "killer app" that works better on 64 bits·before 64 bit becomes mainstream.· For example, 3D accelerator cards for PCs were·only used by CAD professionals - a tiny minority of users - until games started making good use of them.· Fast forward 10 years to today and you can't find a mainstream graphics chipset that doesn't have built in 3D support.· All in all I'd say that unless you need the additional address space 64 bits give you (eg if you're a Photoshop user and regularly edit huge·images), just stick with the 32 bit version.


Post Edited (Fabian Nunez) : 1/23/2007 11:49:40 PM GMT

rokicki

Well, I hope the 64-bit OSes take off before then. 4GB is just not very much memory at all, and it is laughable
that we should be limited by the OS on how much memory we can use. It's made much worse by the fact that
most operating systems actually limit programs to 2GB or less, even if there's 4GB physical memory installed.
And by motherboard manufacturers who claim support for 4GB, but when you put 4GB RAM on your board, you
only get 3.3GB accessible physical memory because PCI Express takes a huge chunk of the physical address
space and the motherboards won't remap the memory (even though the processors themselves went beyond
32-bit addressing a long time ago).

Rsadeika

Well, I moved my Vista laptop to the temp dust collection point. Now I have a new problem. I installed the Propeller Tool on my 32 bit Win XP pro laptop, and when I start the tool up, it puts up a window asking me to put a disk into drive . Drive is my CDROM drive, how do I get rid of that annoying window on every startup of the tool. Anybody else having this kind of problem?

Thanks

Ray

John R.

If it is the prompt I've come to know and love (not), I get it for my "removeable" drives (like card readers) on my desktop. You can just press the "continue" button, and it will ignore the error, and move happily along. It is annoying, but I've managed to get used to it. The other Parallax IDEs all do the same thing.

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John R.

8 + 8 = 10

Rsadeika

The problem has disappeared, I guess the program or the computer (maybe both) needed some R&R. This morning when I turned on the computer and started the tool, the annoying prompt was gone. So, I guess the new procedure will be, install program, and restart the computer, ah, I see we are making progress.

Thanks

James Long

I have a question, that is not directly related to the original one, but is related to the new Propellor tool.

Is there a way to save a eeprom file with the new version?

I didn't see the option.

James L

Kaio

James,

you must press F8 to compile your objects, then click on button "Show Hex". Here you can find a button "Save EEPROM File".

Kaio

James Long

OH.....well .....thanks for pointing out my stupidity. [noparse]:)[/noparse]

LOL..

I guess I should look better,

James L