Has anyone used the Parallax Propellor chip? It looks very interesting - especially the 8 parallel processors. I am concerned by the fact that their "SPIN" language is interpreted instead of compiled. I'm used to compiled C on a 20 MHz PIC, so I would be very disappointed if an 8-threaded Propellor has less performance than a single-threaded PIC.
Any insight would be appreciated, especially performance comparison experience.
BRW
Just check tihs out for performance:
Of course the propeller chips aren't the best for everything. There's all sorts of design specs to take into account when choosing a uC - not least the per unit price! Saying that I've never actually used one myself and they certainly do look very interesting for hobby stuff.
We've had two presentations on the Propeller at our robotics club (HBRC). For me, the thing that grabbed me was that it was possible to dedicate one processor to debugging support without effecting the performance or behavior of the other 7 processors in any way. The example shown was the ability to manipulate the parameters for a PID algorithm in real time and see the results in real time. Until I saw that example, I was pretty ambivalent towards the Propeller. There are DSP chips with significantly more total performance than the Propeller, but it can be a total pain in the rear to get your algorithms debugged on them. The short answer is it looks like Parallax has another winner on their hands.
-Wayne
We are working on a commercial C compiler for Propeller. We are pushing for an alpha/beta in Oct and end of the year release. Feature wise it will be very similar to our other products
// richard
We are about to release new OLED display hardware for the propeller chip:
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