Hydra Logo: the future of realtime Propeller programming!
Dreamwriter
Posts: 22
OK, maybe that's a bit overkill [noparse]:)[/noparse] But hey, I had to announce my project to the world, now that we have a dedicated Hydra board here, and *I'm* pumped about it at least! (if you've read this on the XGamestation boards, it's the same project) You know the old Logo programming language - you may have used it in school on an Apple IIe or Atari computer. You've got a "turtle", and you can move it around with plain English commands: Forward 20, Right 90, Back 40, etc; and as it moves around it draws a picture. Well that's what I'm making for the Hydra - you just turn it on and start programming, no need for a compiler or anything. I'm also planning on making it so you can save functions you create to the Hydra's EEPROM, and then load them up again (maybe even do all that automatically for you).
I'm making two versions - version 1.0 is just me diving in and making it in SPIN, learning the Hydra specifics and figuring out what is needed. Then version 2.0 will be the real deal - full ASM, custom graphics drivers, multiple turtles each on their own COG (parallel processing Logo!), etc. As of now version 1.0 is getting close to being done (been working on this for a while now); it has the full text console, you can type in turtle commands and they are followed, drawing pictures on the screen.
There's a blog of sorts showing my progress on my Hydra website, complete with screenshots.
I'm making two versions - version 1.0 is just me diving in and making it in SPIN, learning the Hydra specifics and figuring out what is needed. Then version 2.0 will be the real deal - full ASM, custom graphics drivers, multiple turtles each on their own COG (parallel processing Logo!), etc. As of now version 1.0 is getting close to being done (been working on this for a while now); it has the full text console, you can type in turtle commands and they are followed, drawing pictures on the screen.
There's a blog of sorts showing my progress on my Hydra website, complete with screenshots.
Comments
Back in the dim, dark ages of home computers I wrote a memory dump in LOGO because that is
usually the first item I write on a new machine. It is a necessity for any "hacking" (the old definition,
not the bad one) when developing new ideas. I can't remember the machine now, but it was the
only language available at the time and was later published in one of the then current magazines.
I will follow your development closely since I want to do a similar project and you have made a
significant step forward. Are you using VGA output?
Fred2
I never programmed Logo before. But I know a lot of people who did.
PC attachment -- or at least, that is the goal? Superb!
Is your LOGO creating program written in assembler or Spin?
Just curious....
Fred2
Andre'
Andre
Armed as in "SHOOT 30"?
(lol)
repeat 180[noparse][[/noparse]fd 4 rt 2]
and get a (pretty good approximation of a) circle. Just for fun, here's a sneak peak at some SPIN code:
case Command COMMAND_FD, COMMAND_FORWARD: eraseTurtle parameter1 := getIntParameter(ParameterList) ParameterList := secondaryReturn 'standard geometry, x = delta * cos(angle), y = delta * sin(angle). +90 so zero degrees points straight up. turtlex := turtlex + ((parameter1 * getCos(turtleangle+90)) / 65535) turtley := turtley + ((parameter1 * getSin(turtleangle+90)) / 65535) 'plot the line gr.colorwidth(2,0) gr.plot(oldTurtlex, oldTurtley) gr.line(turtlex, turtley) drawTurtle NewStringPosition := ParameterListAndre'
Functions (user-created Commands) have been giving me lots of problems, but (just tonight) I finally got basic functions in Logo working...mostly [noparse]:)[/noparse] Right now, one or two line functions work just fine, even if one of the lines is a "repeat" command, but any more lines and it doesn't work. As well, you can call a function with the "repeat" command ("repeat 4[noparse][[/noparse]right 45 mysquarefunc]"), but doesn't work if the function is the first command in the repeat. Before tonight only single-line functions would work, they wouldn't work in repeats, and they'd only work if the function declaration was the first thing you did after starting up Hydra Logo, so it's now coming along quickly.
Once I get these problems fixed, I need to add the ability to pass parameters into functions, add in basic arithmetic functionality, and saving functions to Eeprom, and that'll be version 1.0, to be released to the masses. Due to noticing I have more free RAM than I thought I had, I'm currently thinking of delaying the assembly version of Hydra Logo (previously 2.0), so I can make this one a lot more complete and cool: add support for the NES controllers, sprites and sounds and stuff, and make its parsing less strict (the repeat command is very strict to how it has to be setup, and you currently are limited to one command per line of text).
Hopefully you guys will be able to enjoy my work soon!
Another preview: here's the current command list
' LOGO Commands #chars,string commands byte 2,"fd" byte 7,"forward" byte 2,"bk" byte 8,"backward" byte 2,"lt" byte 4,"left" byte 2,"rt" byte 5,"right" byte 4,"home" byte 6,"setpos" byte 10,"hideturtle" byte 2,"ht" byte 10,"showturtle" byte 2,"st" byte 5,"penup" byte 2,"pu" byte 7,"pendown" byte 2,"pd" byte 6,"repeat" byte 2,"rp" byte 2,"to" byte 4,"make" byte 2,"mk" byte 5,"shoot" byte 3,"end"