Propeller Microcontroller

[Adam Y.]

Parallax Propeller Microcontroller (http://www.parallax.com/propeller/index.asp)
What a weird device. Eight 32 bit processors all running at the same time. I can think of a few different useful projects I could use this for involving robotics.

[Rickertsen2]

Whoa.. that looks.... Intersting...

I can't wait to see that applications people come up for this and to get my hands on one.

Multicore microcontrollers. Somehow that seems unnecessary but at the same time veyr cool

[lukevanoort]

Ooo, these would be great in next year's RC, minus the fact that nobody has experience with them... sorta kills their usefulness as an offboard coprocessor too...

[Rombus]

its interesting, This months nuts and volts has an article about them, pretty high chip cost though.

Could be interesting to use on a robot, each processor gets a different task, motor control, sensor input, radio control, autonomous code.

Don't see this being used for FRC though, Too new, no C complier, and no data about there high level "Spin" language yet. It will be interesting to see how it advances over the next few years.

[Alex G]

Parallax Propeller Microcontroller (http://www.parallax.com/propeller/index.asp)
What a weird device. Eight 32 bit processors all running at the same time. I can think of a few different useful projects I could use this for involving robotics.

At first glance, it seems like a nice microcontroller, but when you look more in depth, it seems pointless to use one.
You have eight processors, but you only have one 32-bit I/O port. It becomes annoying when you program it and only want to modify some of the outputs. You will have to and or or some bits.
The programming language is not that great. It is a sort of pseudo-object-oriented BASIC.
The price of $25 is way higher than its worth. I would much rather use several Scenix microcontrollers, which you can purchase for $3.50 a piece.