Viewport v1.1: Free 80Mhz Scope! EDIT: THIS THREAD DESCRIBES AN OUTDATED VERSIO

Hanno · 2007-06-20 14:03

WARNING: THIS THREAD DESCRIBES AN OUTDATED VERSION OF VIEWPORT. PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE LATEST FROM: mydancebot.com

Your Propeller is now a 80Mhz Scope! Viewport v1.1 lets you measure all 32 IO pins every clock cycle. Viewport still gives you all the flexibility and power of a PC based digital scope, but now also supports triggers and a logical state analyzer mode to view all 32 bits on one screen.

Lots of other improvements- see http://mydancebot.com/products/viewport/11/faq.php

Viewport is free for personal hobby use- download it here:
http://mydancebot.com/products/viewport/11/
Thanks to Parallax for a great product, we're having lots of fun getting top performance out of the chip- developing an affordable balancing bot, moving data to/from the PC at 2MegaBaud through optimized bitbanging, and now sampling the IO port every cycle with advanced self-modifying code running interleaved on 4 cogs!
Hanno
[url=http://myDanceBot.com: Home of the Affordable Balancing Robot]myDanceBot.com: Home of the Affordable Balancing Robot[/url]

Post Edited (Hanno) : 9/4/2007 8:19:30 PM GMT

Graham Stabler · 2007-06-20 14:16

How do you get 80Mhz when the processors run at 20MIPS?

Graham

Hanno · 2007-06-20 14:27

Good question! Each of the 8 cogs runs at 20MIPS. We use 4 cogs to take measurements every clock cycle. This is the maximum speed for taking measurements of a single register. Here is a time line:
Time: Cog 1 : Cog 2 : Cog 3 : Cog 4
0___:Start__:______:______:_____
1___:______:Start__:______:_____
2___:______:______:Start__:_____
3___:______:______:______:Start
and repeat....
Each cog takes 1 measurement every 4 cycles- but since we use 4 cogs, we can measure every cycle! This also allows us to take 1600 measurements...

Post Edited (Hanno) : 6/20/2007 2:31:55 PM GMT

Graham Stabler · 2007-06-20 15:09

Of course!, I noticed you mentioned interleaving 4 cogs but got it into my head they would have to be out of phase by 1/4 of a clock cycle but rather they need to be 1/4 of an instruction cycle out of phase which is a clock cycle, doh!

Graham

Paul Baker · 2007-06-20 16:03

Excellent, it's fantastic to see someone take something and make it even more powerful, also the PC based GUI is a very nice touch. Kudos!

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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer

Parallax, Inc.

rokicki · 2007-06-20 17:08

Congratulations! That's really cool stuff.

inaki · 2007-06-20 18:12

Which kind of data transfer interface are you using·in/with the PC side to match the 80Mhz data rate ?

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janb · 2007-06-20 18:20

Hi Hanno,
this is really cool! How about an upgrade to 160 MHz [noparse]:)[/noparse] ?

One could achieve it (with prop clock @ 80 MHz ) by:
- providing the probed signal to 2 pins at (almost) the same time, to be exact delaying one of them in hardware
by 1/160 MHz=6.25 ns . I mean add ~4 foot of coax cable between the source and 2nd pin.
- using 2 pair of 4 cogs to do the measurement

To accomplish that one would need to shut down all graphics while taking this snap shot.
After data are acquired the 3 TV-cogs would be fired again and display the result.

I have not tried it, just brain storming
Jan

Paul Baker · 2007-06-20 19:10

inaki said...

Which kind of data transfer interface are you using·in/with the PC side to match the 80Mhz data rate ?

It's only collecting the data into buffers at that speed, it isn't communicating with the PC at that rate.

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Paul Baker
Propeller Applications Engineer

Parallax, Inc.

Chris Savage · 2007-06-20 19:51

It would be interesting to be able to see the results on a Composite or VGA monitor (directly from the Propeller).

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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support

Hanno · 2007-06-20 19:58

Inaki- The measurements take a very interesting path from hardware to viewer. First they are "mov"ed rapidly from the INA register to the fast assembly cog registers- this takes 4 cycles/sample/cog. After 400 samples have been taken on each cog, samples from all the cogs are consolidated into the slower main memory. From here, they're collected by the Viewport USB conduit, and sent over the wire at 2mbps to the desktop application where they are stored in a buffer ready to be displayed as bit traces, value traces, displayed as base 2, 10, 16, or shared with others. The difficult part was ensuring that throughout this chain, only complete measurements would be shown, not the first part of one and the last of another. I was very excited to see it all work!

rokicki · 2007-06-20 20:02

Yeah, it's a great accomplishment. Consider that we are recording 32 bits at 80MHz, so that's an aggregate rate (during collection)
of 2.56Gb/sec (even if only for 20 microseconds or something). That's really fast.

fish · 2007-06-20 20:22

Very cool,
I have·a spare (semi-crippled) propstick that I was hoping to find a good/useful application to dedicate·it to.
(Semi-crippled as I accidently·busted off the mini usb port and have re-connected it back on with little wires...not so pretty now).
But now it will have new life.
Great!
thx
fish

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Did I make a unit test for it? No... Did·I run the test·suite·before checking it in? No... But it shouldn't break anything.· ~intern·(just before we let him go).

Harley · 2007-06-20 20:31

Hanno,

Now this is really great. Paul's app I thought was great and couldn't be sped up. Wow, isn't the Prop an amazing chip?

I downloaded the necessary files and have played with ViewPort a little.

Unfortunately, there must still be a bug or two. If I do certain mouse clicks, it sometimes quits (= returns to desktop view) or crashes and hangs with an error window of "Unhandled exception occurred...." message. First time I could not even clear it with ShutDown. (Other times Shutdown does resolve the 'hang'.) At that point clicking on either of the three buttons, the error window or even the Viewpoint app window, only a 'ding' bell sound happens and nothing is resolved. Just wanted to let you know something isn't quite right.

Seems if mouse clicks are too fast, or sequence not right, the above can happen. Feedback; have you ever noticed any such behavior?

I appreciate this application of the Prop to this task. I have an original Ant8 (from RockyLogic, England) used for some PIC applications a few years back. A very usable device. How much program space is left over after ViewPort in programmed into a Prop? I have an project which requires two Props because of more than 32 I/Os needed. But no spare cogs for ViewPort. I'll have to look into your source to see if I can make use of it.

Thanks for the innovation for this project.

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Harley Shanko
h.a.s. designn

Steel · 2007-06-20 20:31

Hanno-

Am I missing something?·

I compiled the FastScope_10 (and ViewportConduit_11) onto the Propeller Chip.

When I run the Viewport application, and click "connect" or "Identify Hardware", they don't see the Propeller chip.· I have verified that I have the Comport set correctly.·

Is there something that I am missing?·

Thanks.

Shaun

Hanno · 2007-06-20 21:46

Apologies to those having troubles.

We'll resolve problems as soon as we diagnose them. You can help by sending as much information as you have to support@mydancebot.com
Viewport includes a "debug" mode that logs diagnostic information to a file- viewport.log, stored in the Viewport folder. You can enable this mode in the Edit/Preferences screen. Sending us this file should help us resolve the last glitches.
Thanks!
Hanno

Graham Stabler · 2007-06-20 21:47

Just load fast scope 10 and it should work automatically.

If I run it and then change to another program and then try to go back it looses the connection and on some occasions crashes (un responsive and then an error window).

Graham

inaki · 2007-06-20 21:52

Hanno, thanks for your explanation.

Do you think that something like the following·would be possible(it is a succesful product by the way):

http://www.tech-tools.com/dv_main.htm

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Hanno · 2007-06-20 21:57

Inaki-
Yes- once the bugs are ironed out, Viewport should be a wonderful tool to measure all 32 I/O pins on the Propeller at high data rates. Once the Analog Dreamkit is finished- you can do analog data as well! Some advanced features, like pre/post trigger are not there yet- but we'll get there.

El Paisa · 2007-06-21 02:09

The program in Auto keeps looking for com 4 port.

If I select manually com 2 port, the program starts then crashes.

Hanno · 2007-06-21 02:39

We're busy working on a fix for 2 bugs that seem to be causing the majority of problems:
1) Auto com port detection doesn't work for some setups (Temporary workaround is to manually set your com port in Edit/Preferences)
2) Crashes/Frozen screens on some setups/situations. (No known workaround)

The fix should be ready within the next day- stay tuned. Until then, if you encounter a different bug, please let us know- best is by email: support@mydancebot.com. Thanks for being patient!
Hanno

bambino · 2007-06-21 16:55

Hanno,
Great app!
I too experienced a hang up, but the cause was in not having the prop powered when bringing up viewport. I had to end the process from taskmanager to unfreeze it.
Just a quick question though! As I ran the app for the first time I saw outputs on channels 0 thru 7 and of course 30. I can understand the output on the com channel, but is the first 8 neccessary, leaving the other pins in between for general use?
I ask because of the use of this on the demo board where 0 thru 7 are the only spare pins you have.

Hanno · 2007-06-21 22:04

We're making good progress on a much more stable release, thanks for everyone's help in letting us know what the issues are!

Bambino- The second line of the "main" program starts a cog which "wiggles" the lowest 8 bits for demo purposes- this is a good signal to view and trigger on. Comment out this line when you actually need to use those pins.

The wiggle is very simple, but high performance, it counts backwards on INA at 20MIPS. (Every 255 it takes an extra 8 cycles to reset):
Wiggle mov dira, :mask
:init mov outa,:mask
:wloop djnz outa,#:wloop
jmp #:init
:mask LONG $FF

(edit, I use : pmask in the program, but : p yields the

smileyface. I didn't know my code was that happy!)

Hanno · 2007-06-22 04:02

I just uploaded an update to the website.·
http://mydancebot.com/products/viewport/11/download.php
It should fix a number of problems, including stability issues, com port problems, and other minor items.· It's also prettier- see attached.· Let us know if you have any problems!
Hanno

bambino · 2007-06-22 19:42

Just Downloaded, Thanks.
This is amazing. I thought I had a good deal when I gave $100 bucks for a 40 mhz scope a year ago. This is digital, but thats mostly what I use it for anyway.
You mention an anolog version, that should really be amazing! Anyway, Thanks again.

Harley · 2007-06-22 19:50

Hanno,

Yes, the latest version handles much better.

I did find one bug yet. If I click on Help under Help menu item, it hangs up. Only once did I notice it went to the Internet, but stopped that before I realized 'maybe' it is online help; maybe not.

Is there a user manual which describes the selections? Like what is 'Traces' useful for? Some text would be useful

When Reset Prop was done it seemed to stop everything, rather than start over. At first nothing was happening; unless it takes a long while. If I did a Connect then it seemed to restart operating.

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Harley Shanko
h.a.s. designn

Hanno · 2007-06-22 22:56

Harley,

A detailed "Help" document is available online at:
mydancebot.com/products/viewport/11/help.php
When you click on Help inside Viewport, it should take you there. Keeping it online allows us to keep it up to date. Let us know if anything is missing...

"Traces" graphs the value of your measurements over time- just like an oscilloscope. The graph will be automatically scaled and centered if you keep the "AutoCenter" button on. This is especially useful when you use Viewport to track variables in your program. For example, when developing our balancing robot, we used an early version of Viewport to monitor all vital signs from the bot on a single screen: gyro and accelerometer readings, kalman filtered angle, and motor output. When we had problems, we could look back in time to see what happened. We also took plenty of "pictures" of the graphed traces to monitor our progress and share measurements within the team. This style of debugging was very productive- we never had to litter our program with "print statements", the performance wasn't impacted since Viewport runs in its own cog, and we always had all data available- up to 50 channels, sampled 1000 times/second for several minutes!

"Reset Prop" sends a "reset" command to the propeller. This is the same as pushing the "reset" button your propeller board. We suggest you load Viewport into the EEPROM (using F11 in the Parallax IDE), that way Viewport will continue working after a reset.
Good luck on your project!
Hanno

Harley · 2007-06-22 23:37

Thanks Hanno,

Probably what was happening is I didn't wait long enough for the online Help to happen; only looked 'hung up'.

I didn't think to look back at your web site. Didn't notice the Help menu item, as the formatting on an old iMac isn't the same as a PC or others. So now have it printed out to study off-line. Don't always have the opportunity to take the time to read online.

I can imagine how useful ViewPort has been for your bot project. But using 4 cogs, doesn't leave much for a project. I've a 2-Prop project and only have 2 and 3 spare cogs in them.

You wrote "up to 50 channels". I wonder if you'd meant '30' without the A30 and A31 pins used by the USB i/f?

Thanks again

for this useful program and for the friendly help.

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Harley Shanko
h.a.s. designn

Gerry Keely · 2007-06-23 11:13

I tried this with a Windows XP(Home) computer but as soon as the spin code loads I get the "dreaded" blue screen. Anybody else having the same probliem??

Regards

Gerry

Hanno · 2007-06-23 19:38

Gerry-
Sorry about your problem- when are you getting the blue screen?
1- After using the Parallax tool to load the propeller with the Viewport spin code?
2- Or, when doing something in the Viewport Application?

We only have control over #2- but we need more information- a trace file would be very helpful, or a description of what you're doing...
Thanks!

Harley-
Viewport only takes 1 cog to transmit from the Propeller to/from the PC. The 80Mhz scope is just one of many applications of Viewport, (see [noparse][[/noparse]url:]http://mydancebot.com/products/viewport/11/applications.php for some ideas) and it takes an additional 4 cogs to do the fast measurements, and even a 5th cog to provide the demo wiggle siignals.

I did mean 50 channels- each a 32 bit, long variable representing some variable in my Propeller program. To allow Viewport to graph and monitor your variables, you just need to include one line in your spin program:

For example, if your program is using two variables, a and b to do calculations, then you can graph those variables just by including the VP object:
OBJ
vp:"ViewportConduit_10"

and starting the Viewport cog with the appropriate configuration string:
vp.start(31, 30,@a,String("a+,b="))

Viewport has a tool to create the configuration string, see "File/Configuration String Tool"
Hanno

rjo_ · 2007-06-30 18:01

Hanno,

I didn't believe it...

So, I downloaded it... and IT'S TRUE!!!

Everything worked... first time, second time, etc. (Occasionally have to exit and restart program when I do something stupid.)
I let the demo run all night... no problem.

Absolute fantabulousity...
(Almost idiot proof[noparse]:)[/noparse]

Rich

Viewport v1.1: Free 80Mhz Scope! EDIT: THIS THREAD DESCRIBES AN OUTDATED VERSIO

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