Future prop possibilities.
matb_uk
Posts: 16
Hi all, i was thinking about the potential of the prop II when it arrives. I'm barely scratching the surface of the what the current Prop can do but i was wondering what the successor may be capable of. Would we likely see higher video resolutions with higher colour depths or pixel based rendering as apposed to tile based or would the 512 long cog ram be the limiting factor? Would external ram be a possibility with all the extra IO that the new prop would have? Could a different CPU be emulated in a cog(s) so you could have maybe a speccy emulator or something?
Comments
Whilst there are many more knowledgeable people than me on this forum - who I hope will correct my answers if required - I believe that PropII will be able to do all you've suggested
Higher resolutions - Yes, with new object; ans I understand it the resolution's limited only by the number of COGs you want to throw at it (and that's down to limited COG memory I think).
Colour depth - not sure, but probably.
Pixel rendering - not sure, probably.
External RAM - yup; but only if you're happy using-up those extra pins.
CPU emulation - I guess so. I seem to remember lots of talk of emulating the Commodore 64 at one time; don't know how far that got though.
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Cheers,
Simon
www.norfolkhelicopterclub.co.uk
You'll always have as many take-offs as landings, the trick is to be sure you can take-off again ;-)
BTW: I type as I'm thinking, so please don't take any offense at my writing style
Look at external SPI chip with 32KB RAM memory: N256S0830HDA
Best regards,
Radio DELANET
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Radio DELANET - modern electronics by own hands!
I've not looked at how large the CPU emulations are, but there is just a ton of code for this purpose, already written. Maybe the best thing would be to do it in native prop assembly...
Video resolution, pixels, color depth, etc... will not be limited by COG memory. Common, practical resolutions and bit depths will not require lots of COGs either.
External RAM could be paged in and out, DMA style, with a COG or two, of 16, handling requests.
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Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Without reading ALL of the "What would you want more of...." thread, go to page 19, 6/28/2007, 3:56pm entry.
I listed the then known details of Prop gen#2 and the post the info came from. (Formatting got screwed-up on copy/paste from my document; and I didn't know how to correct that.)
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Harley Shanko
I was going to try and write picmicro emulator for fun.
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I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand
-Confucius
Have you seen Femto Basic that Mike has put together. It is in the object exchange at: http://obex.parallax.com/objects/28/
There's also BoeBotBasic at http://obex.parallax.com/objects/27/ and BS2 pbasic functions at http://obex.parallax.com/objects/30/
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The size and cost of the current prop are the limiting factors. A 16F876A runs anywhere from $4-7 whereas the prop is $12. That being said when the prop is compared to the 16F877 the price becomes less of an issue $9 vs $12.
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Any thoughts about “baby” props coming out in the near future?
The cost can certainly come down as the volume rises and as the development costs are paid off. The actual cost of production of the chip in volume should be low enough. Don't forget that you can buy current Prop chips for $8 each in 1000 chip lots. Small volume prices don't reflect the actual costs of the chip production.
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--DFaust
NO! It has been addressed many times before.
If I can add my 2 cents :
- a C compiler
- a Prop II which can drive pmw, serial communications and so on, without to have using assembly language as soon as you have to work with 80 or 100 kbit/s
We can assume that the PropII will be at least twice as fast when bound to HUB accesses.
C will be 10 times faster than SPIN (at the cost of larger programs).
So yes, 200 kBit/s will be possible