Amazing Job

Talk about YBoxen, widgets, Propeller hacking, etc!

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thetribster
 
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat May 09, 2009 1:30 am

Amazing Job

Post by thetribster »

Now that I've spent a fair amount of time looking thru the code that runs the yBox and associated widgets - it is pretty impressive. I don't know the original yBox so I can't compare but this implementation is very slick. I wish I knew the spin language better as it is very difficult (and time consuming) to figure it out - at least for me. The comments in the code are pretty sparse.

I find the SPIN documentation to be less than stellar - in fact it's pretty terrible. I am relatively new to microprocessor development and the associated electronics but coming up to speed quickly. Starting with the Arduino and the Processing language helped me but it is still a tuff transition to the Propeller and Spin. I started coding in Assembler (6809) in 1982 but quickly moved to higher level languages and have spent that last 27 years developing in pretty much all them - but never anything quite like SPIN :)

This device has huge potential and it is clear that Ada and Darco have spent a lot of time with it - frankly I'm pretty amazed at what they've been able to do! and for the price it really is a great value! I've been turned me on to a whole new set of possibilities to get excited about and pursue - thanks for that!

I'm planning on throwing a page on one of my sites that will provide access to my source code as well as expose some server side feeds that I am working on (using APIs almost exclusively for this work - Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google, etc). I'll also try to consolidate direct links to valid information - whether here (the forum) or elsewhere on the Web.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome.

adafruit
 
Posts: 12151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: Amazing Job

Post by adafruit »

theres a non-free ImageCraft C compiler for propeller which i think has a demo mode
im still peeved that they went with SPIN when C would have been Just Fine. heck I wrote a working MIPS compiler in college its not that hard to write a compiler these days :P

thetribster
 
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat May 09, 2009 1:30 am

Re: Amazing Job

Post by thetribster »

Having some problems with Viewport. It doesn't consistently see or stay connected to the propeller. The Spin IDE however does. I am running XP under a VM on a MAC so that could have something to do with it. I'll try again on an XP laptop - would be nice to have that functionality but I hate spending the money on it ($49/std).

I've added a debug flag on both sides (Spin and PHP) that will help if I am unable to get VP working - has anyone here used this? with theyBox?

grindel
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon May 25, 2009 10:06 am

Re: Amazing Job

Post by grindel »

I believe there is a free C compiler called Catalina C.
I haven't messed with it though.
All I know is spin and maybe some basic, so I don't know enough to be erked at it.

http://forums.parallax.com/forums/defau ... 1&m=339139

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