Questions and compliments

dividebyzero

I just got my HYDRA and I am very impressed. For 200 bucks you can't go wrong. I have been reading the book non-stop since friday. I am a big fan of Lamothe stuff (got his first Tricks of the game programing gurus) and I am really glad he is writing about hardware stuff these days. I have been afraid of hardware my whole life, but this book is making it fun learning about the·propeller chip and the·hydra.·I have a billion questions, so if someone can answer them, I just want to ask a few right now.

1. When is the sram card coming out?
2. I want to make my own game cards, what's a good, cheap PCB company?
3. I have been reading over the demos in the book and the assembly language stuff, but its more or less a work of genius and I am not really an assembly programmer, I was wondering is there any plan to have a class on the·hydra in the future? Maybe at parallax or nurve?
4. I read in the book somewhere (can't remember where) that you can overclock the hydra? How much and will it hurt it if I do?

-- dbz

AndreL

Thanks a lot, yes the book was a ton of work as are all books. As far as you questions go:

1. Very soon, I am writing the docs right now, the cards are coming back from manufacturing next week, so I will put the cards for sale for pre-order even if they aren't done very soon.

2. Well, depends where you live, but pcbfabexpress is really good.

3. I don't have the facilities for that here, but parallax does have developer events, if they do another one this year and there is enough interest, I would be willing to come and do a talk, maybe develop a graphics engine from
the ground up during the class???

4. Chip Gracey has thrown out a few numbers, but I think you can definitely get the chip to 128 Mhz and maybe even 160 Mhz, but you need to up the voltage to 5.0V. I have ran the chip at an even 100 Mhz and had no trouble, but even if you fragged the chip which I doubt, basically it will just not work if you over clock it too much, but if it did break, you can just get another DIP and plug it in. But, try slowly raising the clock and keep your finger on the chip to make sure it doesn't get hot, if it does try a heat sink. But, I would try a 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 mhz xtal and the x16 pll mode, but after the 6.0 mhz you will probably need to up the voltage which means cutting the 3.3v to everything and using 5.0 which could be tricky, so first just see how fast you can get it to go with 3.3v and no changes to that part of the design.

Andre'

Paul Baker

In re #4, the counters are conservatively rated at 128MHz, 160MHz aggressively. The Propeller is conservatively rated at 80MHz and we don't provide an aggressive number, however spot tests show an average Propeller stops working somewhere between 110 and 115 MHz. Though we make no guarantee any particular propeller will operate beyond 80MHz, I have yet to see one fail at 100MHz.

Overclocking the Propeller beyond its capability does not damage it, it just wont operate at that frequency.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer

Parallax, Inc.

Post Edited (Paul Baker (Parallax)) : 4/22/2007 7:01:58 AM GMT

dakkon

I have a question too about the Hydra so ill just add it here.

Are the NES controller ports supposed to be really slim?
I keep getting the NES controller stuck in it and its hard to get out [noparse]:([/noparse].

AndreL

Don't push it in so far, you only have to put it in so it "bites", normally, those ports would be enclosed in plastic and have a lot of mechanical around them for pulling out, pushing in, so just push them in enough to see the little green LEDs turn on. Also, you can put some electronics lube on the housing to make them slide a bit.

Andre'