In early December 2010 I heard of the Propeller for the first time. Darco (who first (or independently and concurrent with others) documented the protocol for the GECE RGB pixels) used one for his project and DynamoBen encouraged me to consider the Propeller as I considered creating an RGB MegaTree. Within 2 weeks I had this done, using a one-off prototype standalone Propeller-based controller. A thread documenting the process from initial spark of imagination to something real is here:
http://doityourselfchristmas.com/fo...sign-ideas-amp-exploration&highlight=megatree - althought pretty long, reading a few of the first posts will give you an overview.
The point is that I found the Propeller to be a lot of fun. Vist the Parallax web site (
www.parallax.com) and download the PropellerTool (it's free). It's their proprietary "IDE-lite" - used for coding in SPIN (interpreted higher-level language) as well as PASM (Propeller Assembly). Definitely open up the PDF documentation that comes with the PropellerTool download to learn about the architecture and use of the Propeller. It's not like other uControllers with its 8-cog design.
For hardware, DynamoBen has the PropController (designed, I believe, to enable creation of daughter boards), jstjohnz has the e680/1; the QuickStart board that budude pointed to is the newest addition by Parallax and looks really great for learning and tinkering. I used the older ProtoBoardUSB for my MegaTree. That provides a breadboard and access to all I/O, and a USB programming connection for the PropellerTool. Then there's the "Spinnerette", a board with the Propeller and a WIZnet hardwired TCP/IP stack, MAC and PHY that gives you a lot to play with. Drivers are available for download form the Obex (the OBject EXchange) where users post their work openly for use by others. Beware, though; I was an early user of some of that code and ended up writing my own from scratch (customized for a single purpose, faster, but definitely not general-purpose) because of bugs that made me nuts.
Parallax hosts online forums, and my experience is that while there are the inevitable few that use it to boost their egos, I found that there are many very (very!) intelligent and knowledgeable users there that will help freely (and they even can tell you about the actual IC layout, down to differences in register-to-IO delays from one pin to another).
On top of that, Parallax seems to be investing in growing the company (and reputation) beyond hobbyists and tinkerers. They claim a PropellerII will be released later this year, with far more memory, a bump from 80Mhz to 200MHz clock, 80 GPIO, and more. This should become a viable platform for commercial/industrial projects (not that there aren't real projects already using the PropI).
So this may seem like a "fanboy" post. I assure you that I am not a very good "joiner", much less a mindless follower of fads. There are things about the Prop that make me crazy. However, I do want to say that with <$50 investment, if you are like me, you will have more fun with this thing than a $500 game console. Go for it, have fun.
My name is Al, and I'm a PropHead...