PropellerForth tidbit: changing the console speed

PropellerForth 8.01, by default, sets the console at 19,200 baud.

This is mostly for compatibility, and doesn't tax the serial driver; in practice, the I/O routines spend most of their time sleeping. At 80MHz the kernel I/O routines have no trouble doing 230kBps. Increasing the speed can really make a difference when moving a bunch of data to the console, such as when dumping a block of RAM or listing a block of source.

Currently the speed is hardcoded, but that doesn't mean we can't change it. :-)

\ Set the console I/O speed in bits per second.
\ Takes effect immediately.
\ Example:  115200 console-speed
decimal
: console-speed  ( u -- )
  second swap /    \ get # of cycles per bit
  176 L! ;         \ change the kernel's constant bit time

The magic number there, 176, is the location of the bit time constant inside the kernel -- we use L!, local-store, to override it in the running kernel image. 176 is valid for 8.01 and early alphas of 8.02, but may change in the future -- eventually there will be a supported way of doing this.

Have fun!