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Prop purchase — Parallax Forums

Prop purchase

CenlasoftCenlasoft Posts: 265
edited 2007-12-11 14:46 in Propeller 1
I have been working a while with the BSII and some SX. I have experience in VB 6.0 programming and just learning Java. I was thinking about get your Propeller starter kit. I have a mac power book with OSX. Will that work. Thanks,
Curtis Desselles

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2007-12-10 04:10
    You will need to be able to run Windows. Currently the only compiler for the Propeller is Windows-only. I have been able to do development on a Mac Powerbook under OSX using Guest PC or Virtual PC and running Windows XP under either one. It's slow, but usable.
  • DroneDrone Posts: 433
    edited 2007-12-10 06:47
    Cenlasoft,

    I hear that a virtual machine program called "Parallels" works very well for running Windows on the Mac, see www.parallels.com/ for more info.

    You may be able to run the Propeller Tool under Wine. Wine is a Free Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix. This page www.winehq.org says Wine runs on OSX. After all OSX is pretty much just a ripped-off FreeBSD, X & KDE.

    However when I look for a Wine binary for OSX I can't find one. Compiling Wine on OSX may be dicey if not tedious. But there is a commercial version of Wine optimized for OSX called CrossOver Mac. See this link: www.codeweavers.com/products/. A trial version of CrossOver Mac is available here: www.codeweavers.com/products/download_trial/.

    I haven't tried any of these solutions, I don't have a Mac.

    Let us know how it turns out should you choose to go forward. I've been thinking about getting a Mac. IMHO Vista is a mess and they're prematurely killing-off XP.

    Good Luck,

    David
  • AleAle Posts: 2,363
    edited 2007-12-10 07:57
    Drone, sadly both methods need a x86 processor, and will not work with PPC Macs. GuestPC as Mike suggested is the only way (it is now owned by m$).
    Btw, OSX is _not_ a ripped-off FreeBSD + X + KDE. Sadly is far (away) from what X provides, but X can run, and you can use X based program (like Gimp or Inkscape, or OpenOffice). The kernel is not the freebsd kernel, only parts of it, probably the network stack, but I do not know. And finally, OSX is not KDE, there is not Qt. KDE is winblows like, and as that it well suffers the same problems (I use xfce at home, and well it leaks memory, loads of it :-( ).
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2007-12-10 12:56
    Ale, you're a bit mistaken about GuestPC.
    It's not owned by M$ at all, that's VirtualPC, I believe.

    GuestPC is made and sold by http://www.lismoresystems.com/en/
    Works even on my iBook(1.33GHz) if You have patience... And decent amounts of RAM...

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    Don't visit my new website...
  • rjo_rjo_ Posts: 1,825
    edited 2007-12-10 18:59
    This has been discussed a number of times.

    The final answer always seems to be that to get a reliable set-up you need to stick with a Windows computer.
    The Prop is worth more than the computer... so if you have to buy one, don't be upset. You will get your money's worth out of your Prop.


    There is active work by some of the guys here to produce a Basic system which doesn't use any computer... it won't have everything that everyone needs, but as a Prop starter system it will have a market... particularly for those that don't have a Windows system and just want to experiment with the Prop.

    I don't want to mention names because I always forget one... but Oldbitcollector is headed in that direction.

    It looks like it will be a completely open system... so you will mostly pay for the parts and postage. To bootstrap the system you'll need something written on either an SD card or an eeprom. Pretty neat.
  • DroneDrone Posts: 433
    edited 2007-12-11 09:23
    Ale, Ah-yes PPC vs. x86 - I take it Cenlasoft's Power Book is PPC based; forgot the Macs forked.

    As an aside; perhaps for x86 OSX uers... If you don't want to buy Windows and don't want to install Wine or a virtualization layer on your machine, then "perhaps" there's an alternative way to run the Propeller Tool:

    There is small "live" CD Linux distro (based on Slackware) called "Slax" that comes in several flavors, one of which is called the "Kill Bill" Edition.

    Slax Kill Bill Edition is specifically designed to boot off CDROM and run Windows programs. Everything is pre-configured to run Windows apps in (presumably) Wine. Slax runs in RAM. The desktop is KDE.

    How you go about installing the Windows apps on the Kill Bill CDROM or running them from a USB dongle for that matter is beyond me as I've never tried, but I'm sure theres plenty of explanation on the Slax page, the Slax documentation is quite good in my opinion. In the past I've found customizing the Slax Server Edition to run out of CF cards on embedded x86 boards to be a fruitful endeavor.

    Regards,

    David
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2007-12-11 14:46
    Drone,
    Unfortunately, the Propeller Tool will not run under Wine. It will "sort of" run under Code Weavers' commercial enhanced Wine in that it will compile, but won't download stuff and it stumbles over a couple of bugs during startup that, if you ignore, don't seem to have any consequences.
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