This week saw the SDK being put through its paces by members of the community. On Monday markd reported that he’d compiled Python-on-a-Chip for Epiphany and was able to run the PyMite interpreter on the simulator, publishing instructions to the forum and putting the source up on Google Code.
Sylvain (tnt) had been experimenting with code for complex number processing — which is critical for applications such as software-defined radio — and discovered that the compiler was producing sub-optimal code for the “complex float” type. Embecosm investigated the matter and Joern Rennecke reported that this was a bug in gcc, raised a problem report upstream and merged a fix into the Epiphany GCC repository. On testing Sylvain found that this resulted in 30% smaller code!
At the request of mrgs a forum was set up on Tuesday for operating systems for Epiphany, with a discussion ensuing soon after about the merits vs. overhead of an O/S for the architecture.
Those who missed out on Kickstarter are now able to reserve a board and various minor updates have been made to the website, including the addition of introduction and team pages. Google+ users are also now able to keep updated via a new Parallella page.
