Propeller chip

Overview
At first glance, the propeller chip appears to be a powerful and useful tool for more complicated robots requiring simultaneous processing. In select cases this is true. For instance, the propeller chip excels in applications were multiple threads run simultaneously. For instance, rambler made use of the multiple cores to facilitate its walking algorithm. The only draw back is the use of Parallax's proprietary language, Spin.

Multiple Cores
One of the most exciting features of the propeller chip is the 8 cores included in the chip. Each core of the propeller chip is called a cog. Each of the cogs is controlled by a central hub. The hub controls access to memory and interactions between cogs. To accomplish this the hub cycles through the cogs giving access to memory etc. Thus only a single cog has access to the memory at a given time.

Pin Out
The propeller chip features 32 I/O pins. The pins are numbered starting with 0 and ending with 31. Several pins have special functions. Most important are pins 30 and 31. These pins are the Serial TX and Serial Rx pins respectively and allow the user the communicate with the propeller chip.

Programming
The propeller chip is programmed using Parallax's proprietary language called spin.