The new ViewPort Development Studio from Parallax delivers an industrial-strength debugger combined with a Spin editor and a large set of powerful data-analysis views.  As a full-time software engineer working with Microsoft Visual Studio, I have been spoiled by sophisticated commercial development tools.  For me, ViewPort delivers the same power to my hobby as I have when I’m working at the office.  That isn’t saying that using ViewPort is like being at work; ViewPort is a lot more fun.

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Most important, you can set breakpoints and single step your Spin program from this view.  This window is software engineer’s nirvana.

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Let me assure you that, with very little effort, you’ll be able to make immediate use of ViewPort’s basic debugging feature.  To help you learn, ViewPort includes a great manual and many source-code samples and tutorials to help you master each capability.

Thank you Steve!  Past issues of Robot are available online at: http://botmag.com

Here’s an early screenshot:

This shows 12Blocks’s main interface, consisting of:

* a top row of main actions
* a library of “blocks” on the left, organized into 10 categories
* the “program” sheet where you snap together blocks to create your program
* and the output pane where you can view the live spin code, your variable’s live values, a graph of them, or the status of the io pins

The programmer does not have to worry about cogs, objects, or the associated initialization/data/variables required for each object. You can change a program’s parameters as it’s running. 12Blocks manages the complexity of polling for events such as key/mouse clicks and starting up cogs.
Spinner is ideal for anyone starting out with the Propeller- it makes it easy to take full advantage of all the Propeller’s capabilities. Transitioning to programming in spin with the Propeller Tool is easy as 12Blocks continually shows you the generated code and it opens/saves regular spin files.
A perfect hardware complement is the Propeller Demoboard to let you:

* drive a robot with servos
* draw graphics for vga/tv
* react to keyboard/mouse
* communicate with a terminal
* output music tones, wav files, record and play back sounds, and synthesize speech
* interface with sensors like the PING and a compass
* perform input/output on the pins: measure frequency,pulse, count edges…

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Spinner makes it easy to do anything with the Parallax Propeller!
It’s still under development, here’s an early screenshot:

This shows Spinner’s main interface, consisting of:

• a top row of main actions
• a library of “blocks” on the left, organized into 10 categories
• the “program” sheet where you snap together blocks to create your program
• and the output pane where you can view the live spin code, your variable’s live values, a graph of them, or the status of the io pins

The programmer does not have to worry about cogs, objects, or the associated initialization/data/variables required for each object. You can change a program’s parameters as it’s running. Spinner manages the complexity of polling for events such as key/mouse clicks and starting up cogs.
Spinner is ideal for anyone starting out with the Propeller- it makes it easy to take full advantage of all the Propeller’s capabilities. Transitioning to programming in spin with the Propeller Tool is easy as Spinner continually shows you the generated code and it opens/saves regular spin files.
A perfect hardware complement is the Propeller Demoboard to let you:

• drive a robot with servos
• draw graphics for vga/tv
• react to keyboard/mouse
• communicate with a terminal
• output music tones, wav files, record and play back sounds, and synthesize speech
• interface with sensors like the PING and a compass
• perform input/output on the pins: measure frequency,pulse, count edges…

Pick up the March ’09 issue of Circuit Cellar or read the feature article here: Vision-Guided Robotics
A Next-Generation Balancing Robot DanceBot is still a prototype, but you can sign the waiting list here.

Here’s some feedback from our users on ViewPort v4.1:

Several magazines picked up the Press Release:
Elektor, Servo, and Nuts and Volts.

My local robot club had a line-following theme the other night so I taught DanceBot to follow lines using computer vision. The video signal from a miniature camera is digitized and processed by DanceBot’s Propeller to guide it along a black line.