I made some research, though couldn't have found any article about it. Is there any work that has been/is being done for Parallax Propeller Microcontroller with D Language? Any library, linker etc.

As far as I see on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller), there are ports to microcontroller's assembler for C, Java, Pascal, Fortran.

Note: For those who don't have knowledge about it, this microcontroller is 32 bit, and has 8 cores on it.

Am 17.10.2014 um 20:06 schrieb tcak:
> I made some research, though couldn't have found any article about it.
> Is there any work that has been/is being done for Parallax Propeller
> Microcontroller with D Language? Any library, linker etc.
>
> As far as I see on wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller), there are ports to
> microcontroller's assembler for C, Java, Pascal, Fortran.
>
> Note: For those who don't have knowledge about it, this microcontroller
> is 32 bit, and has 8 cores on it.

You forgot to provide the link for the best use case that Parallax Propeller is being used for. :)

http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=33

--
Paulo

On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 19:12:52 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
>
> You forgot to provide the link for the best use case that Parallax Propeller is being used for. :)
>
> http://www.xgamestation.com/view_product.php?id=33
>
> --
> Paulo

Wow! I didn't know that really. Checking the games now.

On Friday, 17 October 2014 at 18:06:26 UTC, tcak wrote:
> I made some research, though couldn't have found any article about it. Is there any work that has been/is being done for Parallax Propeller Microcontroller with D Language? Any library, linker etc.
>
> As far as I see on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller), there are ports to microcontroller's assembler for C, Java, Pascal, Fortran.
>
> Note: For those who don't have knowledge about it, this microcontroller is 32 bit, and has 8 cores on it.

I haven't seen any work in this community specifically for this platform, however, thanks to GCC, I don't think it would be too far out of reach.

If you have the hardware, I recommend you give it try and write a wiki about it. Here's how I would a approach it.

1.  Download the Propeller GCC source code [1].
2.  Clone the GDC repository for the specific GCC version that best matches the GCC version of the PropellerGCC
3   Read and try to understand the instructions for building a GDC cross-compiler [2].  Ask questions on the D.GNU forum [3] if you run into trouble.
4.  Adapt the instructions for the Parallax Propeller
5.  If you're successful, post your instructions as a subpage if the GDC cross-compiler wiki
6.  Make a minimal D runtime as described in the Adam Ruppe's "D for Kernel Coding" chapter in the "D Cookbook" or similar to the ARM Cortex-M Hello World on the D wiki
7.  Make a hello world program and post your instructions on the D wiki
8.  Bask in the pride and admiration of a job well done.

Mike

[1] PropellerGCC: https://sites.google.com/site/propellergcc/
[2] GDC Cross-compiler instructions: http://wiki.dlang.org/GDC/Cross_Compiler
[3] D.GNU forum: http://forum.dlang.org/group/D.gnu
[4] D Cookbook: http://wiki.dlang.org/Books
[5] ARM Cortex-M Hello World: http://wiki.dlang.org/Minimal_semihosted_ARM_Cortex-M_%22Hello_World%22

On Saturday, 18 October 2014 at 01:42:38 UTC, Mike wrote:

> 2.  Clone the GDC repository for the specific GCC version that best matches the GCC version of the PropellerGCC

Forgot the most important link, the GDC source code:  https://github.com/D-Programming-GDC/GDC

Mike

On 10/17/2014 02:06 PM, tcak wrote:
> I made some research, though couldn't have found any article about it.
> Is there any work that has been/is being done for Parallax Propeller
> Microcontroller with D Language? Any library, linker etc.
>
> As far as I see on wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller), there are ports to
> microcontroller's assembler for C, Java, Pascal, Fortran.
>
> Note: For those who don't have knowledge about it, this microcontroller
> is 32 bit, and has 8 cores on it.

I've worked with the Propeller before. Really cool little chip, but due to the extremely limited memory and unconventional architecture (in some ways), I can only imagine that using high-level languages (even C) would mean giving up a non-trivial amount of power (and I seem to recall hearing exactly that happening, too), and I'm not sure it'd be worth the bother. Personally, I think it'd be better to just stick with Asm. It's not a particularly complicated Asm like modern forms of x86.

But then again, my experience with Propeller was very early in the chip's lifetime (only Asm and SPIN existed for it), so for all I know maybe compiler backends have managed to get pretty good at Propeller?

That said, D on Propeller *would* at least be pretty cool. Certainly be better than SPIN anyway.