I bought a MCU board equipped with the Parallax Propeller P8X32 chip from Inex through Ebay. This rather 'odd' microcontroller contains 8 32-bit RISC cores on one chip. The chip contains 32K ram that can be shared by all 8 cogs. The board is equipped with a SD-card slot, PS-2 mouse/keyboard adapter, a standard VGA-connector, composite-video output, 8 LED outputs, a speaker, 3 ADC inputs (10 bit), a USB connector, a reset button and a powerinput connector and can be programmed with SPIN and/or assembly. Right out of the box from Hong-kong it playes a sample program through the speaker.
(wikipedia) Each of the eight 32-bit cores (called a cog) has an elementary CPU (the ALU of which does not directly support division) and access to 512 32-bit long words (2 KB) of instructions and data. Self-modifying code is possible and is used internally, for example by an instruction that is used to create a subroutine call/return mechanism without the need for a stack. Access to shared memory (32 KB RAM; 32 KB ROM) is controlled in round-robin fashion by an internal bus controller called the hub. Each cog also has access to two dedicated hardware counters and two special "video registers" for use in generating PAL, NTSC, VGA, servo-control, or other timing signals.
Features:- P8X32A-D40 Parallax Propeller Chip
- 24LC256-I/P EEPROM for program storage
- Replaceable 5.000MHz crystal
- 3.3V and 5V regulators with on/off switch
- USB-to-serial interface (FT232RL) for loading and communication
- VGA output
- TV output (PAL, NTSC)
- PS/2 connectors for mouse and keyboard I/O
- 8 LEDs (share VGA pins)
- Logic I/O Connectors Provided (I/O rated for 3.3V only)
- SD Card Interface
- Small Speaker 8W 100mW
- 10-bit A/D Converter with 4-ch Chip
