Hi I'm RB

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The_RB
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Hi I'm RB

Post by The_RB »

Hi everyone! Nice new forum. :)

My name is Roman Black I'm an old timer, electronics and microcontroller/PC enthusiast and professional for way too many years.

I started with microcontrollers back around 1980 with 8080, Z80, 6800 etc. I've been a long time PIC devotee, the first PIC I bought was a 16c57 and the IDE was dos based. :mrgreen: Also worked as a dos and Windows C coder in the early and mid 90's as the graphics engine coder on a 2D PC video game, and some business apps etc. Lots of years in electronics design, consulting, repair. I get bored and change careers every couple of years, learning new skills keeps life interesting.

I'm a big believer in open source and giving stuff back to the world hence my web page with free PIC stuff, algorithms and Windows software tools etc; www.RomanBlack.com

I saw XMOS some months back from a XMOS challenge ad but didn't really have time to check into these little beauties at that time. I'm not a huge fan of the newer bigger PICs, even though I have had very good experiences with PICs in the past (smaller PICs) the new big PICs are very much about peripherals on silicon and I'm very much a "code up whatever the heck I want" kinda guy, so if I want features I just code them. Most of the time I'm still using the little PICs!

So looking into these new XMOS babies and saw the "silicon in software" type concept and thought wow! That's me! Don't like the PIC32 with tons of specific peripherals on silicon, just gimme heaps of RAM and ROM and a huge side helping of MIPS. And why not stick 4 parallel processors in one chip too? Pure genius.

I haven't jumped in and bought dev kit just yet, as I'm busy with some commerical stuff for a while but with the new forum just setup I thought it was time to step forward and say "Hi! This is me and I see a lot of possibilites in these babies".

Oh yeah and I'm a long-winded opinionated old coot too, lol. ;)

PS. Thanks again Jason for helping with my forum login issue!


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leon_heller
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Post by leon_heller »

I keep meaning to play with your sound generation technique. An XMOS version would be interesting.

Leon
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jason
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Post by jason »

Glad to have you with us!

Great to see you heard about the XMOS challenge I am running. It is good to see it is reaching far across the internet!

As you may have seen, the first people to 512 experience points or more get a free XK-1 (see your profile page for your current count), so keep active and you may very well end up with an XMOS kit in your hands to play with, just for being enthusiastic about what you do - which you clearly are.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy your time on the new site, much exploring to be done!
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The_RB
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Post by The_RB »

leon_heller wrote:I keep meaning to play with your sound generation technique. An XMOS version would be interesting.
...

Yes my thoughts exactly. BTc 1bit sound provides a 16:1 compression over 16bit DAC, and at higher bitrates easily gets to HIFI quality. It so much easier to decode than any MP3 although it doesn't match MP3 compression, however the BTc 1bit sound can still be compressed after that...

I've got some unpublished versions of the algorithm and some other 1bit compress ideas that might be exciting given access to heaps of MIPS.

Also I really like your XMOS stamp idea, funny enough that was about the first thing I thought when checking into the XMOS hardware.

Jason- Thanks for the welcome! :)
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AtomSoft
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Post by AtomSoft »

Hey RB heh welcome... Im jumping into this XMOS stuff as well heh... Im planning on getting the XC-2 Ethernet Kit in a few weeks. I finally made up my mind heh...

I have been reading this stuff and i recommend you download the software and simulate some code to get the feel of it. Its not as difficult as i thought and seems like this will open up a lot of projects for me... Mostly Video based...

Note that even tho this runs at 400mhz i think the I/O is maxed at 100Mhz ... Got to read up more on this but heh its what i got so far :D

anyway enjoy your stay and im sure when you get into this you will surpass me like in the other forum heh... Oh yeah love the site dude!!
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The_RB
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Post by The_RB »

AtomSoft wrote:...
Note that even tho this runs at 400mhz i think the I/O is maxed at 100Mhz ... Got to read up more on this but heh its what i got so far :D
...
Hi Atom! I saw you were getting into the XMOS. That's part of the reason I came and had a look here. That and the fact I recently did a VGA video project and was swearing at the lack of MIPS on the PIC I was using haha.
AtomSoft wrote:...
anyway enjoy your stay and im sure when you get into this you will surpass me like in the other forum heh...
No way! I have a feeling I will soon jump on the XMOS train and I'll need you to hold my hand lol. :D

I downloaded the datasheets and have been reading a bit in my spare time. It will probably be some weeks before my schedule frees up and I can dive right in.
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