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interesting document on propeller I found — Parallax Forums

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  • Interesting. Did they ever build it?
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    What a strange paper. What kind of Masters degree was it for?

    It starts out as if it is some technical exploration of a novel processor architecture.

    Then it dives of into market analysis and MBA speak for a long time. With some wildly optimistic revenue and profitability estimates.

    At the end we do indeed find some Verilog and what looks like test results. With no explanation at all.

    Along the way there is a lot of technically incorrect statements.





  • Heater. wrote: »
    It starts out as if it is some technical exploration of a novel processor architecture.
    Then it dives of into market analysis and MBA speak for a long time. With some wildly optimistic revenue and profitability estimates.
    At the end we do indeed find some Verilog and what looks like test results. With no explanation at all.
    Along the way there is a lot of technically incorrect statements.

    Hmmm, nowadays, that seems to be the definition of a thesis.............
  • I stopped at page 2 and gave a grade of F-. Parallax is spelled with a lower case p, sloppy, I would like to decrease latency not increase it. And how did Chip design the Propeller with assembly language/spin?

    John Abshier
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    I noticed those errors as well.

    I started writing a list of obvious errors as I read it. Old habit from long years of reviewing code and documents.

    After I'd written two pages I thought I'd skip them and just mention the big picture.

    Did their prof's even read it? If so it reflects badly on them.

    Heck, it reflects badly if they did not!

  • RaymanRayman Posts: 13,805
    I'm not sure the concept isn't crazy...

    Somebody might pay for custom P1 on FPGA.

    Not sure that would support 3 engineers though...
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2018-01-10 21:33
    I guess Chip killed their business plan when he released the P1 verilog as open source.

  • Lol doubtful it would support one. But it's always useful too look at someone else's analysis of the hardware, regardless of spelling.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2018-01-10 21:53
    I'm not sure the authors understand the difference between chip design tools and application design tools. From the PDF:

    "The Propeller chip was designed using Assembly language and Spin programming. These two tools are not common EDA tools in the semiconductor industry thus making the task of debugging and/or integrating other features into the processor is [sic] difficult and expensive."

    And maybe a little proofreading for grammar would've helped, too. :)

    -Phil
  • evanhevanh Posts: 15,126
    Produced by a bot, maybe?
  • Masters programs typically have a non-thesis option versus writing a full thesis. Instead of writing a thesis the student must take more course work and write a report. The report is authored by three people, so it's doubtful that it's a thesis.
  • The doc is dated 2009 and is listed on the San Jose State MS General Engineering Current Thesis page, but then again the latest one shown as completed was in 2011. Perhaps San Jose State ended the requirement.

    generalengineering.sjsu.edu/ms/student_resources/theses/

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Well. Thank God my final year bachelors degree project write up, "A Contactless Means of Semiconductor Resistivity Measurement", is not online. It was terrible! Never did get the damn thing to work. At least I think I described well enough how it was supposed to work and why it was so hard to make it work!




  • I stopped at page 2 and gave a grade of F-. Parallax is spelled with a lower case p, sloppy, I would like to decrease latency not increase it. And how did Chip design the Propeller with assembly language/spin?

    John Abshier

    Its also spelled with an 'e'
  • Interesting, but also odd. My dissertation was on Propeller software, so I was initially excited. Then I was perplexed. It is a three person group thesis? It is interesting, but feels more akin to an undergrad honors thesis to me.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    varnon wrote: »
    Interesting, but also odd. My dissertation was on Propeller software, so I was initially excited. Then I was perplexed. It is a three person group thesis? It is interesting, but feels more akin to an undergrad honors thesis to me.

    Honors thesis? Barely a passing thesis if even that.
  • ErNaErNa Posts: 1,738
    edited 2018-01-12 17:12
    Maybe it was just in advent of the new P52
  • The Acknowledgements section is a nice bit of boot-licking towards the three academics signing-off the document! As I once told someone who wrote a report for me, "My dog has intestinal parasites that could do a better job than that. Sod off and do it again".

    Nobody can be told their work is rubbish when they have spent a fortune on the course: since the students in the UK had to start paying top whack for university education one quarter of degrees are now first class honours.
  • I'm surprised anyone actually finished that paper, Geez!!!!
  • ErNaErNa Posts: 1,738
    It's because they are really smart and stabil. That helps to overcome any doubt ;-)
  • I believe at least 60-70% is plagiarized. Did anyone catch the pay scale of these fake employees of the fictitious company?
    I wouldn't be surprised if this student got an A on this paper.
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