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Now that the P2 - era begins - is there an EOL for P1 planned ? — Parallax Forums

Now that the P2 - era begins - is there an EOL for P1 planned ?

Don't get me wrong - I am excited about the Propeller 1 in DIP 40 .
I even write a book about it that is planned for easter 2020.
I just would like to know if a new book in German (maybe in English too) about the P1 will pay off at all ...

Greetings !
«1

Comments

  • VonSzarvasVonSzarvas Posts: 3,273
    edited 2019-11-20 19:10
    No, No, No.

    P1 will keep going for a VERY long time, and certainly as long as customers keep buying it.

    This has been stated many times by Parallax.

    You should proceed with your book- and please share the details here when you are ready to publish !

    Best wishes for your project.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,066
    Don't expect P1 to be EOL'd any time soon.

    The P1 uses a significant less power than P2, it's smaller, and has its' own market.

    The P2 will carve out new markets that the P1 could not go into. But that certainly does not mean it will replace P1.

    Just my 2c.
  • That's good news !
    Thanks a lot for your quick and clear answer !
    Yeah I will need some English readers with know-how in advance ;-)
    Greetings !
  • Both the FLiP and QuickStart boards are core products at Parallax and will be available for a long, long time. Customers and Parallax depend on their existence.

    No need to speculate on their future availability. Please design them into your products!

    Ken Gracey
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    AFAIK there is no planned EOL for P1. It fills a pretty wide niche in the microcontroller market. I will most certainly continue using it for many future projects as well as using the P2 for those projects that require it's greater speed, memory, and I/O capabilities.
  • Is it possible to modify a P1 .spin program to run on a P2 without too much ordeal. I’ve spent months writing a fairly complex .spin program, but would like more cogs and ports!
  • w8zr wrote: »
    Is it possible to modify a P1 .spin program to run on a P2 without too much ordeal. I’ve spent months writing a fairly complex .spin program, but would like more cogs and ports!

    That question deserves it's own thread. Why not start a new one.
  • w8zr wrote: »
    Is it possible to modify a P1 .spin program to run on a P2 without too much ordeal. I’ve spent months writing a fairly complex .spin program, but would like more cogs and ports!

    I recently converted the ENC28J60 ethernet chip drivers and networking software to FastSpin for P2. It went very easily, but your problem will not be the Spin code so much as any I/O objects you are using; the replacements are likely to be different, or you may need to roll your own. In my case instead of launching a cog to do fast PASM SPI comms, I translated all that PASM code into Spin too. FastSpin generates PASM object code which runs via hubexec, so it's faster than P1 Spin (even at the same clock rate) but somewhat more bloated (again, 512K instead of 32K helps a lot with this). So now I have a single cog instead of a two-cog driver that is all in Spin instead of mixed Spin and PASM, and it's close to maxing out the ENC28J60 for speed. Translating the Spin only took a couple of hours but the low-level I/O had to also be translated, and even though it was much simpler in final Spin form it has to be understood in its original PASM form to be translated.
  • VonSzarvas wrote: »
    No, No, No.

    P1 will keep going for a VERY long time, and certainly as long as customers keep buying it.

    Yeah! I am happy to hear this!!
  • headcrash wrote: »
    I just would like to know if a new book in German (maybe in English too) about the P1 will pay off at all ...

    The P1 has always lacked good documentation, so there should be a market for P1
    books. But I don't believe the books on the Propeller have been very successful.


    Bill M.
  • The P1 has always lacked good documentation, ...
    I can't disagree more. Everything you need to know about the P1 is contained in both the (free) official documentation and the variety of outside-sourced books on the topic. What details do you feel that you're lacking?

    -Phil
  • headcrash wrote: »
    Don't get me wrong - I am excited about the Propeller 1 in DIP 40 .
    I even write a book about it that is planned for easter 2020.
    I just would like to know if a new book in German (maybe in English too) about the P1 will pay off at all ...

    Greetings !

    I personally feel it is a good & hopefully profitable effort for you. Propeller, though been widely used in west, is still not very popular Asia, particularly in Singapore. Is your book going to be based on SPIN/Assembly or C? Will your book includes examples on projects that might be relevant to current trends? Example autonomous robotic surveillance etc?
  • The P1 has always lacked good documentation, ...
    I can't disagree more. Everything you need to know about the P1 is contained in both the (free) official documentation and the variety of outside-sourced books on the topic. What details do you feel that you're lacking?

    -Phil

    Yes, the Propeller manual and this very forum contain almost all information one'd ever need.
  • W9GFOW9GFO Posts: 4,010
    edited 2019-11-22 03:13

    The P1 has always lacked good documentation...

    I agree, the P1 documentation is not good - it is excellent.

  • W9GFO wrote: »

    The P1 has always lacked good documentation...

    I agree, the P1 documentation is not good - it is excellent.

    yes
  • It has been stated several times over the years that the P2 is not a replacement for the P1. It will be years before I can imagine not using a P1.
  • W9GFO wrote: »
    I agree, the P1 documentation is not good - it is excellent.
    Arduino, and AVR documentation is excellent!

    On the other hand you would be lucky to find a book on the Propeller in a
    bookstore.
    I can't disagree more. Everything you need to know about the P1 is contained in
    both the (free) official documentation and the variety of outside-sourced books
    on the topic.



    -Phil

    I still remember the original Propeller manual and it's compound function calls. It
    may have been easy to understand from an experienced programmer's point of view,
    but it was a big step over Pbasic and SX-B. It certainly wasn't supported like the Basic
    Stamp, and it's many books. The original manual or Propeller education kit made it
    look more difficult than it was.

    The only books that I was aware (3-4 books) and of that, two were published in 2010,
    one never made it to the book stores, and one recently in 2018. I own two Propeller
    books.

    There were a handful of YouTube video-authors, a dozen or so app notes, and Nuts n Volts.
    What details do you feel that you're lacking?

    I would have preferred less projects, in trade for more in depth information about the chip,
    protocols, spin and pasm.

    For example: I believe Andre LaMothe wrote the first half of one book, but the second half
    was filled with advanced projects that did not interest me. So I didn't purchase the book.

    I had ideas for my own projects, and I wanted more info than the short app notes provided
    and more commented code from the OBEX, and maybe details on how to write my own virtual
    peripherals for the Propeller.

    IMO, a lot of those early experiments could have been completed with one Propeller emulating
    different protocols, acting as both the slave and master , a few leds and the PST.


    Bill M.
  • ErNaErNa Posts: 1,738
    I very much like to identify objects by P and a number. And make good use of the potential hidden in them.

    So I cite this to me important speech

    We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

    Today created is a narrative, that everything has to be and is easy, even programming. That definitely is not the case. The way up is always difficult to go.

    With the thinking applied to conventional microcontrollers and their IDE's, the potential of the P1 can never be aroused.

    But it seems, the world has changed to a state, where emancipation is an evil and some just do what they can to keep people in their native state. Drugs have many faces, but always one goal. Addiction. Being addicted to P1 or P2 is worth living ;-) But there is no gateway drug.
  • If there was a book that contained examples of PBasic programs...that would be excellent. I find programming the P1 a lot easier by starting with known good running code that I can modify. Starting to code from the definitions is not particularly easy or efficient. Basic is my preferred language and it can be easily understood by personnel I bring onto a project.

    Sincerely,

    Discovery
  • How many other micros are documented at the Verilog level? It's not exactly easy to understand but it is precise.
  • Aside from the docs parallax provides on their site, there are three books available on programming the Propeller 1 on Amazon:
    https://www.amazon.com/Propeller-Programming-Using-Assembler-Spin/dp/1484233530
    https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Customizing-Multicore-Propeller-Microcontroller/dp/0071664505
    https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Propeller-Spin-Processing-Electronics/dp/0071716661

    Sure, it's not as many as are available for Arduino or RasPi, but they are there.
  • The P1 and FLiP have been my "Go-To" chips for numerous projects over the years. It never disappoints. The hardest thing for me was figuring out how the cogs worked (I am old school) but once I actually tried it, it was an "AHA" moment. Easy peasy. There are lots of books out there but the Propeller Manual and these forums will answer all your questions.
  • evanhevanh Posts: 15,126
    That reads like Capt. Quirk's metric for good is just quantity.
  • Discovery wrote: »
    If there was a book that contained examples of PBasic programs...that would be excellent. I find programming the P1 a lot easier by starting with known good running code that I can modify. Starting to code from the definitions is not particularly easy or efficient. Basic is my preferred language and it can be easily understood by personnel I bring onto a project.

    Discovery

    Have you tried one of these 2 objects?


    Bill M.
  • The P1 will be in existence as long as customers buy it. Parallax's business exists because of the products we have made (and more importantly, which you buy); to end the P1 for some reason would bring an unnecessary end to the Parallax business. And an end to the livelihood of 20+ Parallax staff who love what they do, to 10K classrooms where our robots are used, and to countless companies who depend on us for supply (and by extension, their livelihoods).

    Design it into your products and count on a steady supply! The only reason P1 would cease to exist would be a worldwide absence of foundry business. Even if that obscure situation were to occur we would have a lifetime stocking situation to consider.

    And if you're still concerned about supply, I'll use our history to validate my point above. The SX was introduced in 1997 and was abruptly ended due to a lawsuit settlement. Even though, we had the opportunity to purchase a lifetime supply - and we still offer some SX chips for sale to our customers ten years after we promised.

    Does anybody need a BS1-IC? We've been manufacturing them for 28 years!

    Ken Gracey
  • Tracy AllenTracy Allen Posts: 6,656
    edited 2019-11-22 22:30
    Publison wrote
    Both the FLiP and QuickStart boards are core products at Parallax and will be available for a long, long time. Customers and Parallax depend on their existence.

    No need to speculate on their future availability. Please design them into your products!

    Ken Gracey

    Documentation can be elusive and often requires digging. I noticed that Jon Titus' "Experiments for Propeller QuickStart" is listed among the documentation for the quickstart, but when you click on the link for the pdf, it simply gives you back the link, not the text. Gordon McComb's (rip) "Microcontroller KickStarts" applies to the QuickStart, but it is not listed on the QuickStart page, but it is found at http://learn.parallax.com/KickStart. The Learn site has lots of info and does go into great detail. Applied project tutorials are often the best way to learn, and as a starting point for your own departures.

    Capt Quirk said, "I had ideas for my own projects, and I wanted more info than the short app notes provided and more commented code from the OBEX, and maybe details on how to write my own virtual peripherals for the Propeller." In depth exposition is more elusive than project tutorials. It is much harder to write for a general audience. OBEX objects, what they are good for , what are their lIimitations and why, how they work -- we wish! The best info does require digging back through the collective memory on the forum.

  • The P1 documentation is a mix. The Propeller manual Spin documentation does a very good job of outlining what all the functions and operators do even in edge cases, even if it's poor at warning you about certain "gotchas" like >=. In this vein the Arduino documentation is execrable. It basically describes the obvious purpose of each function without saying anything about limits, edge cases, possible resource costs, or anything else. And C++ is horrible, forcing you to fish through header files in widely scattered libraries to figure out how classes you didn't write and aren't part of the core functionality work if you're trying to adapt code you didn't write yourself. At least the PropTool puts all the code in one place, right in front of you, so you can try to figure out how it works together without playing hide-and-seek.

    On the other hand, documentation of the P1's hardware functionality, particularly the counter/timers and video generator, is sparse to nonexistent. You are pretty much forced to reverse engineer OBEX code to do anything creative, and much of that (I'm looking at you Chip) is not commented. Brilliantly written, important example code like FullDuplexSerial and the original NTSC and VGA drivers is entirely uncommented as to how or why it works. It took me weeks to figure out how video drivers worked well enough to write my own, and I am not exactly a newcomer to programming. I bought Andre's Hydra book hoping it would shine some light on that and was bitterly disappointed.

    And this was with everyone pretty much forced into a common programming environment so at least I was writing code in the same language as the guy who wrote the example. I worry that with P2 there will be no such commonality. The benchmark examples need to be explained -- why was this number written into a register, how was it constructed, what modes are being selected for the control registers and why. Yes it is instructive to figure that out for yourself but it's a steep climb most people won't be able to make without some help, especially if we are going to be having to also translate from one development environment to another to use such examples.

    Don't make this mistake again. Someone, somewhere, needs to write a detailed explanation of how common but complex things like USB and HDMI drivers work so that people who want to roll their own will have a basis from which to start. This has always been missing for P1. And I say that as someone who loves the chip, has used it a lot, and who has climbed that mountain by several routes.
  • Cluso99Cluso99 Posts: 18,066
    edited 2019-11-23 01:26
    These forums are a weath of information, and, there are plenty of us willing to help those who want to learn.
  • The P1 still has its uses, especially because P2 would be overkill for most applications that require a P1. I predict that the P8X32A will be with us for a long time. And lets hope so.

    In fact, P1 has the advantage over P2 in regards to ease of implementation. It requires a single supply voltage and has much less pins. The DIP-40 version is breadboard version by itself.

    Kind regards, Samuel Lourenço
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