I decided to treat myself and get a Raspberry Pi computer, it arrived yesterday and literally within 5 minutes of opening the box I had compiled a hello world C program and proved that I can use a standard USB FTDI adapter to talk to a Propeller chip -- with zero configuration necessary.
That impresses me greatly. I hate the fact that most popular new development platforms require you to download umpteen dependencies and some random GUI or IDE libraries that seem entirely superfluous (QT, GTK, Eclipse etc etc etc.............. ad nauseum). Nope, none of that crap with the RasPi. It just did what I wanted right out of the box. Brilliant stuff.
My plan is to replace the apparently no-longer-supported Linux tools for programming the Propeller chip and it's EEPROM. I have started writing my own code downloader already and it's probably 50% complete at the moment. I may write an assembler later on if there's some interest from the Propeller community.
The downloader program (entitled "pushprop" for the time being, see the banner link at the very top of this blog) will compile and run natively and without any kind of dependencies whatsoever on a Raspberr Pi computer. I despise dependencies and refuse to inflict them on other people :) It's all written in standard C and should "just work". It will be an Open Source project and it the software will be free. I will also make the hardware part (the custom PCB I'll have to design) Open Source, and anyone will be ably to build their own if they like.
Wardy, I got my PI on the same day, and now having fun trying to get it running. The problem that I have is that I do not have an HDMI display. But I found that SSH works, and I found info on setting the Static IP address, which makes SSH easier. Good luck with your PI
ReplyDeleteEldon - WA0UWH
I had the same initial problem, I have several HDMI televisions, but not a single HDMI cable to connect the Pi with. :)
ReplyDeleteI just ssh'd into "raspberypi" and it worked out just fine without using a screen at all. Good stuff.
I don't want to burst your bubble but someone already cross-compiled SimpleIDE (which is the future standard GUI for Propeller and Prop2 programming) to run on the Raspberry Pi: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/141469-SimpleIDE-for-Raspberry-Pi-Raspian?highlight=simpleide+raspberry+pi
ReplyDelete===Jac
Sure other tools do exist already. But choice is good right? :)
ReplyDeleteCome to that, Brad's Spin Tool has also been around for ages, I don't see that as a problem either.
In fact BST's limitations are what prompted me to write my own replacement for it. I needed for some weird features that probably most people won't need but certain applications might have use for. And I want a minimalist installation method, and you can't get any more minimalist than a single C code file :)