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Xmas

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  Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 09:01 -0800
    Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 09:44 -0800
      Re: Xmas Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 20:55 +0200
        Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 11:03 -0800
    Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 14:10 -0500
    Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 11:36 -0800
      Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 14:54 -0500
      Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 16:47 -0800
    Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 13:01 -0800
      Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 13:15 -0800
        Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 21:20 -0800
          Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 22:11 -0800
            Re: Xmas Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2015-12-24 11:52 +0000
      Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 16:26 -0500
        Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 18:20 -0800
          Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 21:45 -0500
            Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 19:29 -0800
      Re: Xmas hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-12-23 19:45 -0800
        Re: Xmas Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 22:46 -0800
          Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 23:22 -0800
          Re: Xmas hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-12-26 16:41 -0800
          Re: Xmas Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@antispam.uni.wroc.pl> - 2015-12-30 01:55 +0000
            Re: Xmas hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-12-30 19:27 -0800
              Re: Xmas Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@antispam.uni.wroc.pl> - 2016-01-01 18:13 +0000
        Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-24 11:13 -0800
    Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-23 21:33 -0800
      Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-23 22:14 -0800
    Xmas Mikael Nordman <oh2aun@gmail.com> - 2015-12-24 04:25 -0800
    Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-26 21:32 -0800
      Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 01:07 -0500
      Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-26 22:10 -0800
    Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-26 23:43 -0800
      Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 10:56 -0500
        Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 09:01 -0800
          Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 12:31 -0500
            Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-27 09:59 -0800
    Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 15:56 -0800
      Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-27 16:14 -0800
        Re: Xmas Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 17:58 -0800
      Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 19:58 -0500
        Re: Xmas Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-12-27 18:07 -0800
        Re: Xmas jim.brakefield@ieee.org - 2015-12-27 18:59 -0800
          Re: Xmas rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-12-27 22:26 -0500

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#44319 — Xmas

So my wife told me I could pick out my own presents this year.
I got a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino, and a Raspduino. I also wanted
to get a Launchpad, but they didn't have any of those. Naturally, 
my programming interface of choice for them is going to be Forth.

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#44321

Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> writes:
> I got a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino, and a Raspduino. I also wanted
> to get a Launchpad, but they didn't have any of those. 

You can order them from TI or from various dealers like Digikey and Mouser.

See: http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads.html

> Naturally, my programming interface of choice for them is going to be
> Forth.

Good choice for the Launchpad and *duino, a little bit limiting on the
Raspberry Pi.

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#44322

On 23/12/2015 19:44, Paul Rubin wrote:

> Good choice for the Launchpad and *duino, a little bit limiting on the
> Raspberry Pi.

Why limiting?  8th runs just as well on the RPI as it does on any other
system... I don't think it's particularly limiting.

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#44323

Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> writes:
> Why limiting?  8th runs just as well on the RPI as it does on any other
> system... I don't think it's particularly limiting.

8th's inspiration from Forth is unmistakeable, but 8th is not Forth imho.

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#44325

On 12/23/2015 12:01 PM, Chris Curl wrote:
> So my wife told me I could pick out my own presents this year.
> I got a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino, and a Raspduino. I also wanted
> to get a Launchpad, but they didn't have any of those. Naturally,
> my programming interface of choice for them is going to be Forth.

Mecrisp is available for the rPi and Launchpads. But not the arduino... 
and not sure about the Raspduino, don't know what that is.  Well, Google 
to the rescue.  Looks like it is an Arduino to plug onto the rPi so you 
can program up Arduino modules but I suppose use the rPi for file I/O 
and user interface.

-- 

Rick

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#44326

Yeah ... the Raspduino is a thing that lets you connect rPi and Arduino
devices together. 

No mecrisp for Arduino ... from what I have read, mecrisp appears to be 
targeted for MSP430s, so since Arduinos don't use that microcontroller, 
then that makes sense, I guess? Or would it make sense to port mecrisp
for ATmega microcontrollers? I guess that would be a mecrisp-ATMega, similar
in concept to the mecrisp-Stellaris. I would interested working on something 
like that.

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this stuff yet ... maybe I
should start by porting mecrisp to it.

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#44327

On 12/23/2015 2:36 PM, Chris Curl wrote:
> Yeah ... the Raspduino is a thing that lets you connect rPi and Arduino
> devices together.
>
> No mecrisp for Arduino ... from what I have read, mecrisp appears to be
> targeted for MSP430s, so since Arduinos don't use that microcontroller,
> then that makes sense, I guess? Or would it make sense to port mecrisp
> for ATmega microcontrollers? I guess that would be a mecrisp-ATMega, similar
> in concept to the mecrisp-Stellaris. I would interested working on something
> like that.
>
> I have no idea what I'm going to do with this stuff yet ... maybe I
> should start by porting mecrisp to it.

MSP430s and ARM Cortex M.  So pretty much any of the Launchpads with 
either CPU.  Not sure why Arduinos are good specifically other than 
their popularity makes them readily accessible.

I recently got the KickStart development kit for the Microsemi 
SmartFusion2 FPGA.  It has an ARM CM3 with FPGA on one chip.  I don't 
know why I have installed it yet.  I should do that today as soon as I 
take care of some business stuff.  I will port Mecrisp to it if I can 
figure it all out.

-- 

Rick

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#44332

Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> writes:
> No mecrisp for Arduino ... from what I have read, mecrisp appears to be 
> targeted for MSP430s, so since Arduinos don't use that microcontroller, 
> then that makes sense, I guess? 

Mecrisp has versions for MSP430 and ARM.  For the Arduino, AMForth
looks pretty good, though I haven't tried it yet.

> Or would it make sense to port mecrisp for ATmega microcontrollers? I
> guess that would be a mecrisp-ATMega, similar in concept to the
> mecrisp-Stellaris. I would interested working on something like that.

Mecrisp-Stellaris uses quite a lot of assembly code--I haven't looked at
the MSP430 version yet.  I suspect an ATmega port would also require
writing a lot of asm code.  That could be fun, but if you just want a
Forth to use, there are already some.

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#44328

Why Arduinos are good ... this is just what the guy at the store said ...

They have their own RTC, so they are better for tasks that need precise 
timing.

He may have been feeding me a line of BS, but the things are inexpensive
enough that it is fine either way, and they are very popular, so it will
be good for me to get familiar with them.

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#44329

Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> writes:
> Why Arduinos are good ... this is just what the guy at the store said ...
> They have their own RTC, so they are better for tasks that need precise 
> timing.

I was under the impression most (all?) Arduinos do NOT have an RTC.
There are a few Launchpads which have it, particularly the 128k FRAM
MSP430 one with the LCD display.  That's an attractive board for a
number of reasons and I'll probably get one sometime.

Arduinos are easy to program, they have a large hardware and software
ecosystem, the cpus are available in DIP format for convenient soldering
and breadboarding, they have wide voltage tolerance, etc.  That all
said, ARMs have much more compute power at comparable cost.

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#44338

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 4:15:58 PM UTC-5, Paul Rubin wrote:
> 
> I was under the impression most (all?) Arduinos do NOT have an RTC.
> There are a few Launchpads which have it, particularly the 128k FRAM
> MSP430 one with the LCD display.  That's an attractive board for a
> number of reasons and I'll probably get one sometime.
I am thinking you must mean this one?

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-msp430-msp-exp432p401r.html#tabs

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#44340

Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> writes:
>> the 128k FRAM MSP430 one with the LCD display.
> I am thinking you must mean this one?
> http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-msp430-msp-exp432p401r.html#tabs

No that's an ARM board, no display and no FRAM.  I mean this one:

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-msp430-msp-exp430FR6989.html

It's really cool.  It has that 6-char starburst display, has an RTC, and
has 128K of FRAM which is basically nonvolatile RAM, and it uses almost
no power.  It would be great if they made some ARM parts with FRAM but
apparently the fab process is different.  The FRAM board seems like a
perfect host for a 16-bit Forth.

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#44345

Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> writes:

>Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> writes:
>>> the 128k FRAM MSP430 one with the LCD display.
>> I am thinking you must mean this one?
>> http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-msp430-msp-exp432p401r.html#tabs

>No that's an ARM board, no display and no FRAM.  I mean this one:

>http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-msp430-msp-exp430FR6989.html

>It's really cool.  It has that 6-char starburst display, has an RTC, and
>has 128K of FRAM which is basically nonvolatile RAM, and it uses almost
>no power.  It would be great if they made some ARM parts with FRAM but
>apparently the fab process is different.  The FRAM board seems like a
>perfect host for a 16-bit Forth.

There is a noforth version for the 5739 with FRAM:

http://home.hccnet.nl/anij/nof/msp-exp430fr5739%20experimenter%20board.pdf

Groetjes Albert
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

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#44330

On 12/23/2015 4:01 PM, Chris Curl wrote:
> Why Arduinos are good ... this is just what the guy at the store said ...
>
> They have their own RTC, so they are better for tasks that need precise
> timing.
>
> He may have been feeding me a line of BS, but the things are inexpensive
> enough that it is fine either way, and they are very popular, so it will
> be good for me to get familiar with them.

I get what he is saying.  The rPi has a big clunky OS which swaps tasks 
in and out of execution.  So your application may not be running when it 
needs to deal with a real time event, the result is unpredictable delays 
at arbitrary points in your code.  The smaller devices with no OS won't 
have that problem.  That includes all of the Launchpad devices, MSP430 
and ARM CMx.  Is your Launchpad an MSP430?

 From what I have read the Arduino is popular because of the IDE 
developed for it which allows a lot of simple stuff to be done without 
much of a learning curve.  But you will be programming in a complied 
language which is not interactive.  There's also a lot of hardware to 
attach, but that can all be attached to other CPUs as well.

-- 

Rick

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#44333

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 4:26:06 PM UTC-5, rickman wrote:
> On 12/23/2015 4:01 PM, Chris Curl wrote:
> > Why Arduinos are good ... this is just what the guy at the store said ...
> >
> > They have their own RTC, so they are better for tasks that need precise
> > timing.
> >
> > He may have been feeding me a line of BS, but the things are inexpensive
> > enough that it is fine either way, and they are very popular, so it will
> > be good for me to get familiar with them.
> 
> I get what he is saying.  The rPi has a big clunky OS which swaps tasks 
> in and out of execution.  So your application may not be running when it 
> needs to deal with a real time event, the result is unpredictable delays 
> at arbitrary points in your code.  The smaller devices with no OS won't 
> have that problem.  That includes all of the Launchpad devices, MSP430 
> and ARM CMx.  Is your Launchpad an MSP430?
> 
>  From what I have read the Arduino is popular because of the IDE 
> developed for it which allows a lot of simple stuff to be done without 
> much of a learning curve.  But you will be programming in a complied 
> language which is not interactive.  There's also a lot of hardware to 
> attach, but that can all be attached to other CPUs as well.
> 
> -- 
> 
> Rick
I haven't gotten a LaunchPad ... yet :). Looking on Amazon shortly.

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#44334

On 12/23/2015 9:20 PM, Chris Curl wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 4:26:06 PM UTC-5, rickman wrote:
>> On 12/23/2015 4:01 PM, Chris Curl wrote:
>>> Why Arduinos are good ... this is just what the guy at the store said ...
>>>
>>> They have their own RTC, so they are better for tasks that need precise
>>> timing.
>>>
>>> He may have been feeding me a line of BS, but the things are inexpensive
>>> enough that it is fine either way, and they are very popular, so it will
>>> be good for me to get familiar with them.
>>
>> I get what he is saying.  The rPi has a big clunky OS which swaps tasks
>> in and out of execution.  So your application may not be running when it
>> needs to deal with a real time event, the result is unpredictable delays
>> at arbitrary points in your code.  The smaller devices with no OS won't
>> have that problem.  That includes all of the Launchpad devices, MSP430
>> and ARM CMx.  Is your Launchpad an MSP430?
>>
>>   From what I have read the Arduino is popular because of the IDE
>> developed for it which allows a lot of simple stuff to be done without
>> much of a learning curve.  But you will be programming in a complied
>> language which is not interactive.  There's also a lot of hardware to
>> attach, but that can all be attached to other CPUs as well.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Rick
> I haven't gotten a LaunchPad ... yet :). Looking on Amazon shortly.

I don't recall looking on Amazon.  I bought mine from TI.  I don't think 
you can find them cheaper.  They aren't much so it would be hard to make 
a profit on knockoffs.

-- 

Rick

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#44335

rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
>> I haven't gotten a LaunchPad ... yet :). Looking on Amazon shortly.
> I don't recall looking on Amazon.  I bought mine from TI.  I don't
> think you can find them cheaper.  

I got mine from TI too.  I remember Digikey and Mouser also sell them,
at the same prices as TI.  I got a TI Chronos (MSP430) wristwatch from
Digikey when TI was out of them and I thought they had been discontinued
(they are still around though).  Unfortunately the LCD displays on those
things are practically unreadable, for no reason I can discern.

The TI Sensortag also looks like an interesting device: a Cortex M3
board in a Tic-Tac box sized package, powered by a coin cell, and
containing a bunch of environmental sensors (accelerometer, temperature,
humidity, etc.) and multi-standard wireless connectivity, costs $29:

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag2015/tearDown.html#main

CPU data sheet is here: www.ti.com/product/CC2650/datasheet

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#44336

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 2:01:31 PM UTC-7, Chris Curl wrote:
> Why Arduinos are good ... this is just what the guy at the store said ...
> 
> They have their own RTC, so they are better for tasks that need precise 
> timing.
> 
> He may have been feeding me a line of BS, but the things are inexpensive
> enough that it is fine either way, and they are very popular, so it will
> be good for me to get familiar with them.

Arduinos are inexpensive? They seemed rather pricey to me --- you are mostly paying for their development system, so it doesn't make sense to pay that much money and then use a third-party development system such as Forth --- there are plenty of experimenter boards around such as the LaunchPad that are less expensive but don't provide much of a development system (the MicroStick-II actually has a pretty good development system, and it is not much more expensive).

The AVR is a pretty cool processor. I started to write a cross-compiler for it but then my usual laziness gripped me and I never finished --- I may still do it though --- it is difficult to get motivated when I know that everybody on c.l.f. will just say that "sucks" and is "crap" without trying it. I would be a lot more enthusiastic about writing Forth code if there were any money to be made, but Forth is really just an obscure hobby.

One thing about the AVR is that the code is very bulky due to having 16-bit opcodes operating on 8-bit data so you need more than one instruction for most 16-bit data operations --- so there is a limit to how much of the system can be written in assembly-language due to the non-volatile memory running out of room --- also, the AVR lacks a short CALL instruction, so you can't put common functions in low memory and save space in the CALL (fixing this problem was one of my motivations in designing the Stundurd processor).

I encouraged the guys at Testra to build an experimenter board for the MiniForth/RACE but they had no interest in doing so --- they only care about customers who are doing commercial applications and who will buy processors or boards in quantity --- I was told: "Hobbyists demand too much support, and they don't have any money."

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#44342

> One thing about the AVR is that the code is very bulky due to having 16-bit opcodes operating on 8-bit data so you need more than one instruction for most 16-bit data operations --- so there is a limit to how much of the system can be written in assembly-language due to the non-volatile memory running out of room --- also, the AVR lacks a short CALL instruction, so you can't put common functions in low memory and save space in the CALL (fixing this problem was one of my motivations in designing the Stundurd processor).
> 
AVR do has a short call, it's the "rcall" instruction. It takes only two bytes
(one word) and has a +/-4K words range (you can go anywhere in a 8K bytes vicinity).
Small chips with 8K flash even don't have the long call instruction at all...
Despite having a 16bit instruction length, the code tends to be very
compact, usually on par with other arch that have variable length instruction
in bytes. For example, an AVR will beat 8051, at least for programs above 4K.
And for a kernel, I have a 32bit(!) one in 6K (full asm, including the
interpreter and flash compiler). A 16bit kernel will probably be the same
because of lots of S/D and double words... Anyway, I suspect a full loaded
kernel with everything will be around 8K.
This is good for arduinos, they are based on a 32K flash chip most of them
(the atmega328). Arduino is expensive by today standards, but are very
common. 

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#44343

Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> writes:
> And for a [AVR] kernel, I have a 32bit(!) one in 6K (full asm,
> including the interpreter and flash compiler).

This sounds cool, are you going to release it?

> This is good for arduinos, they are based on a 32K flash chip most of
> them (the atmega328). Arduino is expensive by today standards, but are
> very common.

The Arduino boards with the connectors etc. are expensive but the cpus
themselves are fairly cheap (like $1.15 in quantity for the Atmega328P)
and easy to interface, with helps their popularity.

Here's a cute little circular board the size of a US dime (14mm diameter):

https://www.tiny-circuits.com/tiny-lily-mini-processor.html

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