SX Chip Final Liquidation!
Ken Gracey
Posts: 7,400
Dear SX Chip Customers,
Parallax is selling out our remaining SX chip inventory and prices have been cut by over 50%! As a purchaser of SX chips we felt it was important to reach out to you in case you still use the SX in production.
The following are available while supplies last:
You may recall our July 2009 SX End of Life notification. At that time we collected final orders and Parallax also stocked up to serve customers who we couldnt reach with the EOL notice. These chips are now excess inventory and available to you for purchase.
Some customers are still looking for SX-Key programming and debugging tools. Although Parallax is out of stock, our forum members have taken up another manufacturing run. I will ask Andre' LaMothe, Guenther Daubach or Peter Montgomery to check in on this thread and let us know where they are with the manufacturing run.
Customers frequently ask if we will still manufacture the SX-based BASIC Stamps (BS2SX-IC, BS2p24 and BS2p40) since they also use the SX chip. Yes! We have a 20-year reserve of SX chips for use in our BASIC Stamp products.
Orders for SX chips may be submitted on-line or via purchase order with approved payment terms.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
599 Menlo Drive
Rocklin, CA 95765
(916) 624-8333
www.parallax.com
Comments
I know my Lottery numbers are coming in tonight. I'll go halves.
Jim
How I wish that were true, erco! Given the average selling price and customer profile who finally buys these (production users) I think we'll have less than half of your estimated revenue. Considering that we bought this inventory perhaps two to three years ago, we're ready to deal! So, let's make a deal! How many of those baby-bot transporters could you make with these chips? Do you really only need one controller per baby bot, or could you use about 20 controllers per baby bot?Ken Gracey
The price of the keys might be slightly higher than before for both distributors and customers, we will see what Gunther decides on finally. But, the good news is, SX-keys will be available VERY soon, in 2-3 weeks I would imagine. I am just waiting for my units. Also, I know that Parallax will probably buy 50-100 units as well, so customers will be able to get them from Parallax also (Ken can confirm or deny this).
Andre'
Absolutely - we'll get them in stock too!
Ken Gracey
Unless you discount beyond your 1000+ price, you're still sitting on $344930. Would you trade that for whatever's behind door #3?
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?94916-SX48-40-pin-DIP-full-kit-and-PCB-available.
I also have a few spare Parallax SX48 Protoboards available. If you would like any of these just send me a PM
Robert
OBC
Can you let me know if or when you have some SX-keys for sale?
I have two of them here at home and I can send you one. Drop me the shipping address via kgracey@parallax.com and I'll send it to you Monday.
Ken Gracey
Gunther is manufacturing 300-400 right now, but he has been quite busy with other contracts, so the process was slowed down. When I spoke to him last 2-3 days ago finally, he said that they are being built now, so I bet about a month before he can start shipping them. I hope sooner, but 2 weeks to build them, 1 week to test and package, 1 week to start shipping to distro's like Parallax, Nurve (me), and others.
One thing we should make sure of is that we have enough SX chips to make say 2500 SX-keys over the next 2-3 years as this finally winds down. I will have to ask Gunther about this, or maybe PArallax has set aside some with Basic Stamp stock for to make sure keys can be made for a while.
I figure about 2-3 more years and that will finally be that with the SX
Andre'
I think the Propeller exists because Parallax wanted to move beyond the SX, but there wasn't anything out there they wanted to move beyond it to.
I thought the SX was made by a third party and it has been discontinued by them.
From what I can tell (I'm a late comer to the Parallax scene), the SX was chip that Parallax selected for the next step after the BS2. That it wasn't manufactured by Parallax didn't matter at the time: it was (is?) a good chip that fulfilled the requirements. When it was EOL'd Parallax took more focus on producing as much as they could in house (although the Propeller was introduced before the EOL).
Senix prospered with its larger chips, but the SXes seemed to be dependent mainly on sales from Parallax. Eventually Parallax purchased the SXchip line and now owns it.
I like the SXes and their similar PICs. Frankly I feel there is quite a lot of unused value remaining in these 8-bit microcontrollers as a means to teach good assembly language programing. But Senix really got off in the weeds when its examples for Virtual Peripheral began to be published in a standardized format conditional to all chips. So we have very good hardware that failed to present itself in a clear fashion to the marketplace.
It is quite difficult for a beginner to be handed an example that has 42 pages of code when the core of the code is just a page or two. This really is how Senix destroyed my interest in the SXes for quite a while. Attempts to revive it with SXB seemed to have failed due to a combination of being rather late in the game and by being involved in a rather lengthy development process with on-going documentation and bug resolution daunting new comers.
So we have come to the EOL.
I have quite a few SXes and two SXkeys and two copies of Gunther's text. I cherish these items and am finally able to understand what is required to code them. But I have also accepted that one day I might have to migrate to PIC chips to retain my knowledge.
The Propeller is a good chip - but an entirely different educational focus, OOP and parallel processing. I think that the SX or its similar PIC still has an important educational role to play. And somehow, Parallax has misunderstood that or gotten distracted by the development of the Propeller. Virtual Peripherals are still an important educational item, always will be. And the SX is also a very interesting chip as an interpreter of tokenized languages because of its enhanced speed. (Spin is also a interpreter of tokens, but the student will never have the opportunity to create their own interpreter on a Propeller chip or a BasicStamp.)
If Parallax is ever to fully realize it's claim as a LEADING educational resource, it may have to one day revive the SX product line. In other words, with the right presentation, Parallax really has room for three product lines - the BasicStamp, the SX, and the Propeller. I realized at this point, economic interest may indicate that the Propeller takes the lead - but Parallax should consider how important a small simple chip is needed for students to see the real power of computing. I suspect Chip Gracey would agree with me.
-Phil
If you'll give me a bit of time I'll share the whole SX story, start to finish, as much as I can. A week or two from now, when I can type it from the seat of an airplane (peacefully alone). We should set the story straight since it's an interesting one.
Would you like more background?
I think you guys might be Interested since it is an important part of our progression and what you see from Parallax in the future.
George, multicore is the future in education for us - no more single-threaded workarounds.
Ken Gracey
I will miss the SX and really have accepted that Parallax has committed to multicore. I hope that it will allow you to prosper. Still, I cherish my "BasicStamp Syntax and Reference Manual" as one of the best educational texts for microcontroller in that past few decades and see things with greater clarity by working with an 8-bit single core. Gunther contributed a great deal of time and effort to educated many of us. Much of what I have learned there is transferable to the multi-core, once learned.
At some point, I do wonder if multi-core is right for the hobbyist. Projects seem to expand vastly and we seem to be moving away of 'tight code'. But I suppose those are just fears about new challenges. It will be wonderful have to more powerful and better video abilities.
I'd love to hear the history, but also realize you have many things that are far more important. And it is rather fun to have it contain some myth.
I would love to read a complete SX history.
--Bill
As Ken will no doubt be relating...the SX didn't follow the normal chip lifespan. Even now it is not obsolete. Its manufacturing ceased purely for legal reasons and not for any lack of interest or value.
1. Deterministic control of micro-controllers.
2. Providing free IDE and text with good hardware
3. Using a chip that is able to create Virtual Peripherals rather than have UARTS and ADCs and so on in silicon.
The SX chips were very important contributors to items 1 and 3. And all these factors are in play with the Propeller. Any history if Parallax's success should reveal that it has always been more generous with the customer and more direct with engineering good solutions.
Yes, the SX chips are certainly not obsolete - but there is the reality of commercial survival being driven by sales in a digital marketplace that percieves newest, faster, bigger as better. I think it was Leonardo Da Vinci that said, "Small spaces discipline the mind." and the SX28 offers that kind of focus to computing. I appreciate it greatly and it will be missed. But the truth is that I don't contribute much to Parallax's economic success and they do have to locate customers that support their future.
And now, we have #4
4. Multiprocessor microcontrollers
Did you ever get a chance to write up the SX story? If so, where is it posted. I just bought a few SX chips to play with since you put them on clearance and would be interested in hearing the SX story.
Thanks,
David
Oh well, may have to get some 48's instead while they are still around.
The SX48 has a lot more I/O, extra timer, and more memory. If you want an easy way to mount those chips I still have some of my 40-pin DIP boards available:
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?94916-SX48-40-pin-DIP-full-kit-and-PCB-available.
You can just use the blank board to mount the chip and solder just what you need to the board.
I may also have a spare Parallax SX48 Protoboard if you need one of those.
Robert
I notice you still have the 40 Pin boards on ebay also. Better to go through the forums so there is no ebay fees.