Eric,
> I love this thread. I was also a fan of the P system, and I used
> Borland Turbo Pascal and Delphi for years. I've also used C style
> languages (most recently C#), and like many of you, I started with
> BASIC (the PET, TRS-80, and Apple II). I couldn't afford to buy any of
> these, but I was the guy everyone came to when they couldn't figure
> something out, so I learned a lot about them.
I wished I could have an Apple II. However, limited funds meant I was
content with an Acorn Atom.
> I think I have got a document in PDF form that explains the p-code
> instructions in case anyone wants it.
Please be aware that there are a lot of p-machine implementations, and
even amonst the UCSD crowd there is a difference in them between
systems. System IV was nice with the ASE. ASE is rather VIish.
> I was thinking of using
> something like that in a recent VM I was designing in my head, but I
> am now hedging on doing something a little closer to the JVM. Support
> for basic OOP contructs would be good, as would support for pointers
> (something the JVM can't do). The interpretive approach of a VM gives
> you some very cool debugging support, and allows you to integrate a
> multi-tasking RTOS at the VM level, and like the P system, it's very
> portable.
There are a multitude of interpreted systems in use today. Some of them
I've even worked on.
> > > Who is making the board and when might it be available? It's not
> > > like this project is urgent. My grandson is only in 2d grade.
> >
> > Can't really say at present.
> >
> > -- Paul.
>
> I always enjoy the ability to speculate because sometimes I have
> inside information, and I always try to keep quiet in that case. In
> this case, however, I don't have any inside information, so I can try
> my hand at guessing. This is especially appropriate now that New Years
> Day is upon us. We're thinking of what will come in 2006, so here's my
> speculation:
>
> 1) Rowley loves Olimex, and Olimex loves Rowley. Olimex will make a
> new ARM9 board, and it will be based on a Philips LPC3000 series part.
> Why Philips?
> a) Olimex has more Philips boards than they have of any
> other ARM maker
> b) Paul likes Philips devices, and he posted this message here in
> this forum (lpc2000 forum)
That's only because the LPC2000 forum is the most active ARM forum. I
can say catgorically that we have no plans to introduce a board for a
device we've never seen, and I've not seen an LPC3k.
> 2) Why is Paul so fond of this idea? It's likely that Rowley's new
> announcement (that might come within the next couple months), might
> involve software tool support for this new device, and it's likely
> they are already working with an alpha or beta version of it
> right now.
There are good reasons for no announcements--and it has nothing to do
with ARM. We certainly don't announce things we are working on. We
also don't announce things we have managed to bag in the way of
contracts. You might put two and two together and come up with
something less than a pint. I know you won't be able to tumble what
we're cooking.
> 3) Rowley is not content with sitting still, and I haven't seen any
> big moves from them in the past 2 or 3 months, so this means they are
> working hard on their next toolset mentioned in #2. And, since the
> Philips Arm9 is not yet common (is it even shipping yet?), it follows
> that Rowley is probably not putting all their marbles in the Arm9 camp
> just yet. This means their new tools (or maybe this should be
> singular, as in "compiler") will target the Arm7 devices primarily.
This is more on target. There will be something coming down the line
that's interesting for many ARM7/LPC enthusiasts. However, the board
that has just been delivered to me has nothing to do with this, it's a
board from a company we have a close association with. As it is not my
board, I'm just using it to port some of my pet code, I really cannot
tell you what it is or what it has. However, it's a really nice piece
of engineering, and something that will keep me busy for quite some
time.
-- Paul.