Prop Activity Board (Old Design) Question
Buck Rogers
Posts: 2,161
in Propeller 1
Hello!
I have here two Prop Activity Boards, one was part of a bequest from one of our members, (You know who you are!), and it while it doesn't have an SD card in its holder, it does have the holder, and programming gets stored on board. The second one was from the first Mystery Box shipment, it arrived with a small card.
That card contains the programming in Spin and Wav files to enable the PAB to pose as a player of Wav files. Can I presume that any programming is being drawn from the SD card, and isn't in the onboard EEPROM? Reason being is that I have here the body of a bot, currently its wearing one of my BOE boards, and I'd like to put one of the two PAB boards on in it, in place of the BOE Board. Or does the fact that programming is also on the SD card, in that it was also stuck onto the PAB in the usual methods, and saved to the SD card to facilitate an easy restoration to the PAB when necessary?
If necessary I'll dedicate the first PAB to becoming a bot and work out the necessary details with the second.
I have here two Prop Activity Boards, one was part of a bequest from one of our members, (You know who you are!), and it while it doesn't have an SD card in its holder, it does have the holder, and programming gets stored on board. The second one was from the first Mystery Box shipment, it arrived with a small card.
That card contains the programming in Spin and Wav files to enable the PAB to pose as a player of Wav files. Can I presume that any programming is being drawn from the SD card, and isn't in the onboard EEPROM? Reason being is that I have here the body of a bot, currently its wearing one of my BOE boards, and I'd like to put one of the two PAB boards on in it, in place of the BOE Board. Or does the fact that programming is also on the SD card, in that it was also stuck onto the PAB in the usual methods, and saved to the SD card to facilitate an easy restoration to the PAB when necessary?
If necessary I'll dedicate the first PAB to becoming a bot and work out the necessary details with the second.
Comments
You can put a program in EEPROM that will then read an SD file and load and execute it in the P1. So, yes, you need a program in EEPROM in order to boot from an SD card. See my Prop OS thread for code to do this.
So if I understand you both, the card can't be booted or started from directly, the Prop would need a special program in EPROM to bring up the card.
This suggests that the second PAB is using the SD card for both data storage, the Wav file and list for it, or perhaps Wav files, and the list they are on, plus the Spin files needed for both.
Well I'm going to maneuver slowly and carefully here, (as if walking barefoot on hot beach sand, or shod or wearing appropriate boots and walking on hot desert sand.) then with that thought decide how to proceed from there.
The Wav file player seems interesting to me, but, ah, I'd go all out for an MP3 player program, especially since the companies sell embedded MP3 players for involving costs.
It's possible to swap Spin programs using a SD card but this is generally only done for very large programs. I'd personally be surprised if the card was being used to hold Spin programs. I think it's more likely it's being used for wav files and possible data logs.
If it's ethical to share the contents of the SD card, we could probably help you decipher how it is being used.
When you mention your robot has a BOE, is this a Basic Stamp Board of Education? There's also a Propeller Board of Education which is as capable as the PAB but with a few differences.
A Propeller based robot should be more more capable than a Basic Stamp robot. IMO, Propeller bots are the funnest robots to program.
Hello!
Yes it is indeed ethical, and I'll list its contents soon. Yes the bot is indeed wearing a BASIC Stamp 2 BOE board. The design is also wearing new wheels and the servos I bought from Micro Center back when they were busily selling Parallax stuff and limping along on other DIY stuff. Including selling the computers to program them. As I mentioned before this concerns the Second PAB and I've also got the first. Trying to decide who's better at it, and even newer.