When did it come out (really old BOE)?

[Martin_H]

Yesterday someone gave me a Basic Stamp board. At first I thought it was a homework board because it didn't have servo headers and the app mod socket was in the wrong place. But the label in the lower right said Board of Education!? This confused me until I looked at the upper right and saw Rev A.

I'm wondering how old this board is, and does it predate the BOEBOT? Is this a collectors item for stamp aficionados?

I am thinking of trying to use it for a project with you my cub scout den for their engineering badge. But I only have one board and nine scouts, so it would have to be a group project or something they could do in shifts.

In the group category we could put together a robot and have it has a den mascot.

In the shift category we could do some exercises out of what is a microcontroller and mix it up with some Lego technic.

[doggiedoc]

Can you post a picture? I don't think I can call myself an aficionado, but I do like to collect Parallax things. :D

[Martin_H]

Sure thing:

88823

It differs from Rev C in that the power jack is further to the front, so there's no room for the four servo headers on the Rev C. Also the App mod socket is shifted towards the bottom and there's no hole to screw an app mod to.

[doggiedoc]

Looks like a first model. I've never seen a Revision B, and I would think that it would have that printed on it somewhere.

[RDL2004]

What is the copyright date on the board? Both of the ones I have are Rev. C copyright 2000-2003. The BS2 came out in 1995, so your board probably falls in the 1995-1999 time frame.

[Martin_H]

The copyright is 1998 and it is a revision A. So it is pretty early in the production of the BOE.

[Ken Gracey]

1998 would be correct. In fact, the BOE part was designed without consideration to the BOT part. Making the board function in the Boe-Bot project required a big 3300 uF capacitor across the power supply. It wasn't until a customer (Chuck Schoeffler, University of Idaho) sent us a PVC-robot with the BOE Rev A. that we started working in earnest towards the BOT half.

The BOE was the first product we created for educational customers. The first What's a Microcontroller text was actually written by Matt Gilliland. Andy was just coming into Parallax around that time as an intern. A few years after Andy got started the WAM text was re-written entirely by him, but the name stayed the same.

The rest of the history I have to save for a complete story.

Ken Gracey