Extending SIMPL and flashing a few LEDs

I have been experimenting with SIMPL, and have added a few new commands to give it greater functionality.

I've wired Digital outputs 2 to 13 to a line of 12 LEDs, to give a very simple means of displaying numerical values.  It also allows LED chaser displays to be tinkered with.

I have added a command to allow the analogWrite function to control an output pin.

Name the pin first, e.g.  6d and then  the PWM value  such as 127a  This sets the PWM to about 50%  duty cycle.

I've also been investigating how fast the commands run, so added a couple of timing commands  b and c.   b prints the current value of the millisecond counter millis(), so typing b before and after a list of instructions will allow you to calculate how many milliseconds it took to execute.  c does the same, but uses the microseconds counter micros().

By timing 10000 cycles of a loop, I can show that SIMPL will add two 16 bit integers in about 6 microseconds.

I have added some commands for easier control of the I/O.    h and l are now used to set a port pin high or low  eg. typing 6h and 5l will immediately set those pins high and low.

After my experiments with LED chaser displays, I also wanted a way to immediately write an 8 bit number to 8 consecutive LEDS.  So the "n" command  displays a number on a row of LEDs.

Typing 255n will turn all the LEDs on Digital 2 to Digital 9.

To make incrementing loops easier, the command "x" now increments x and "y" increments y.

0!10{y@p}

This prints out the numbers from 1 to 10.    0! sets y to zero,    y increments the y variable.

The q,  r and w commands have been used to access the RAM.

300r will print the character stored at address 300.




SIMPL instructions are a mix of lower case ASCII characters, symbols and punctuation marks. These are the primitives, which are interpreted in sequential order by a simple interpreter.  The interpreter is an extension of Ward Cunningham's Txtzyme interpreter.  SIMPL now recognises the following lower case instructions:

a          Send an analog write (PWM) value to a pin
b          print out the current milliseconds count
c          print out the current microseconds count
d          define a digital port pin
e
f
g
h          set pin high
i           read an input
j          skip next instruction
k          access the loop counter
l           set pin low
m         define a delay in milliseconds
n          display a number on a line of LEDs
o          set an output
p          print the x variable to the terminal
q         query a block of RAM locations ( as character)
r          read from RAM
s          read an analogue input
t
u          define a delay in microseconds
v
w         write to RAM
x          increment x
y          increment y (as used in loop structures)



{}       loop the code contained within the braces

@       copy y to x
!         store x in y
?        Dump the contents of RAM to show the existing words

+       Add x and y
-        Subtract x and y
*       Multiply x and y
/        Divide x and y
<      Is y < x
>       Is y > x