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Moving from basic stamp to SX. Difficult for beginner? — Parallax Forums

Moving from basic stamp to SX. Difficult for beginner?

JedJed Posts: 107
edited 2008-02-12 02:58 in General Discussion
I'm new to microcontrollers and have been playing with the BS2. How much different is the SX from the stamp? I notice it's quite a bit cheaper. Is it more difficult to program?

Comments

  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2008-02-11 15:47
    Jed,
    There are some differences. Like serial data must be send one byte at a time. But for the most part conversion is not too hard.

    Note that the SX does not have a built-in EEPROM or voltage regulators like the BS2 does. So if you need non-volitile storage or voltage regulation, you'll need to add external ones.

    Bean.

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    www.iElectronicDesigns.com

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  • JedJed Posts: 107
    edited 2008-02-12 01:04
    Is there a tutorial for the SX like the "What's a microcontroller" text for the stamp that I could dive into to see the actual differences are as far as programming?
  • PJAllenPJAllen Banned Posts: 5,065
    edited 2008-02-12 02:12
    You can download the SX/B Help file here -- http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=597707

    That should give you a sound sense of SX/B'ing
  • bikejunkybikejunky Posts: 33
    edited 2008-02-12 02:29
    It is more difficult, than the Basic Stamp. But don't let that bother you. I am going thru "Programming the SX Microcontroller" book tutorial. right now. If you run into any problems there is allways someone on this forum willing to help. Gunther Daubach "the Author of above book" has answer my question on any problems I had with the tutorial.

    There is also SX basic, which allows for commands very close to the Basic Stamps commands. and it all runs under the SX-key ids. Most of the books and info is free.

    I recommend you getting a SX Tech Tool Kit PLUS and using the SX simulator work thru the available info.

    To sum up it is more difficult, but I believe the final reward will be worth it. To give you an idea how powerfull the SX is check out http://www.xgamestation.com/index.php
  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,217
    edited 2008-02-12 02:58
    I will respectfully disagree with you, BikeJunky; programming the SX isn't any more difficult, but I think it's fair to say that it's more detailed. The BASIC Stamp handles a little niggly details that the SX programmer has to take care of. This is where SX/B is very helpful: it's a bridge between BASIC Stamp programming and pure SX (assembly) programming -- you get the benefits of assembly speed with the ease of BASIC. The upside is that even with SX/B, you can do really cool things like background serial (via interrupts) that are not possible in PBASIC.
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