Parallax Propeller, why is it so overlooked?

I took a look at the chip when it came out, but I was just not ready to move into a new computer system.

I always thought it had a lot of promise, but I did not have the time to look into how easily the eight processors could be exploited.

DAB

I took a look at the chip when it came out, but I was just not ready to move into a new computer system.

I always thought it had a lot of promise, but I did not have the time to look into how easily the eight processors could be exploited.

DAB

@DAB

Ya there is some neat things that can be done with it... I mean you have 16 counter that are independent hardware implementations, a 2MegaBaud UART and as I mentioned a scalable sigma delta ADC which is a speed vs resolution type of idea, this only requires careful layout and and passives. You can probably get a 20bit ADC with a dead bug layout if you dont want to design a mixed signal PCB for a manufacturing. I choose the propeller when I want pure determinism and speed, and do not mind laying out special peripheral chips as needed. Plop a cypress FX2 on the pcb and now you have 480Mbit USB, and a wiznet or ESP2886 and you have wifi. A few differential/instramention amps and bob is your uncle! Most of the time this works well because Im not going to wack a 24 bit dac on an atmega328. If determinism isnt very important and I can get buy with lack luster peripherals I will go with the AVR every time. I dont need a low noise hi res dac to display a battery voltage on a 16x2 lcd this is where AVR works great and it will drive a few relays to switch battery pack banks in and out with general purpose power to  spare!

My personal system is for my robot has a few SRAM and i2C EEPROMs on board along with a propeller chip and an atmega 328 (acually two one 328 runs that battery system, 16 2400ah NiMH split into eight cells and eight 8 cells. One 8 cell set runs motors the other 8 cell set runs everything else, the idea was to get the motor transients isolated all the way back to one single ground point between systems, directly on the battery pack.) The idea of the 328 connected to the propeller chip has an a 4 line bus between the the two chips, with jumpers on each connection (this supports i2c,spi, or 4 bit parallel com bus). This is so I can use the 328 as a pin extender its function is to read all the sensors buffer the data in to its sram and then the propeller poles the AVRs stored values. The propeller is reading the quad encoders and running motor control chips. Then the rest of its cogs are there to do make calculations on the data and move the robot in the appropriate way. This bot will eventually have 2 custom made laser scanners (using wii mote cameras) and an SBC with a CAM running openCV. The SBC will crunch all the measurement data from the lasers and openCV then send that off to the propeller who will think about the right move to make combining the SBC data along with the 328's sonar and bump sensor data. Eventually SLAM will come to play, and maybe Parallela! But this is a clear case for the propeller. For those of you who haven't seen what it can do I figured Id post some unique things, that I dont think other micros can do very easily

http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/105674/hook-an-antenna-to-your-propeller-and-listen-to-the-radio-new-shortwave-pro…

http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/129652/the-lassiter-inexpensive-lidar-distance-detection-ranging-propeller-wiimote

http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/131954/my-attempt-at-23k256-sram-drivers-includes-8-bit-version

Triage Training System | learn.parallax.com

There is all kinds of stuff 6502, 780 emulators that are deterministic, projects running CP/M on the prop etc... these links kind of show the diversity, there are alot of industerial control and RF projects out there too