The propeller MPU is a weird, 2..3 year old Parallax MPU. It does multitasking in hardware, ie a task pointer that "spins", pointing to a new task, with shared memory. It takes a different way of thinking to use it properly, but is very powerful for a RISC-type CPU (or a very light CISC).

Subject: [New post] Parallax shows love for open source: GCC + Propeller
From: "Hack a Day" <donotreply@wordpress.com>
Date: Wed, 20 June, 2012 1:01 pm

Post : Parallax shows love for open source: GCC + Propeller
URL : http://hackaday.com/2012/06/20/parallax-shows-love-for-open-source-gcc-propeller/
Posted : June 20, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Author : Mike Szczys
Tags : compiler, foss, gcc, open source, p8x32a, parallax, propeller
Categories : Microcontrollers

http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/propeller-gcc-e1340207220386.png

Parallax has done something that is unthinkable for most microcontroller manufacturing companies. They've decided to throw their support behind an open source toolchain based on GCC (https://sites.google.com/site/propellergcc/home) . That's right, instead of fighting to get your code compiling on a platform whose example code uses crippleware, you can actually download, compile, and start using this toolchain without code size restrictions or other unfavorable limitations.

Why does this matter? One example that comes to mind is ChibiOS (http://chibios.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start) and the STM32F0-Discovery board. We've been playing around with that board recently (http://hackaday.com/2012/06/17/template-for-building-stm32f0-discovery-project-in-gcc/) and found out that the Atollic 8k code-size limitation prevents you from debugging ChibiOS (http://forum.chibios.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=333&start=20#p4354) . So you either pony up the registration fee, or go though at least a little pain (a lot depending on your skill level) to move to an open source solution. Here that's not going to happen because you start with a GCC option from the word 'Go'.

So join us in a round of applause for good decisions. Bravo Parallax! This Beta test targets the P8X32A Propeller chip but we hope it's so popular that the rest of the line gets its own support.

[Thanks Devlin via Adafruit (http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/06/19/parallax-releases-propeller-gcc-beta/) ]

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