How About Some Parallax Online Tutorials?
erco
Posts: 20,259
While doing some research for a new magazine article, I came across this online tutorial for "another" processor:
http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/index.html
Parallax fans will enjoy seeing these kind and true words near the bottom of that page: The impressively good "What's a microcontroller?" book (& now PDF) by Parallax. It's for BASIC Stamps but is still a good read even if you don't plan to use Stamps.
Now first, I'm neither advocating that particular uC nor jumping ship, but I did take a peek and was impressed by the ease of use of the bite-sized lessons presented online. You have your board plugged in and editor running as you move through the lesson. With a few mouse clicks, you copy code from the website and paste into the editor, making short work of programming and blinking LEDs with minimal fuss.
That's significantly easier than (mis)typing code in from a WAM book and such. As good as we (and THEY) know WAM and other Parallax materials to be, wouldn't similar online versions of those materials make sense?
http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/index.html
Parallax fans will enjoy seeing these kind and true words near the bottom of that page: The impressively good "What's a microcontroller?" book (& now PDF) by Parallax. It's for BASIC Stamps but is still a good read even if you don't plan to use Stamps.
Now first, I'm neither advocating that particular uC nor jumping ship, but I did take a peek and was impressed by the ease of use of the bite-sized lessons presented online. You have your board plugged in and editor running as you move through the lesson. With a few mouse clicks, you copy code from the website and paste into the editor, making short work of programming and blinking LEDs with minimal fuss.
That's significantly easier than (mis)typing code in from a WAM book and such. As good as we (and THEY) know WAM and other Parallax materials to be, wouldn't similar online versions of those materials make sense?
Comments
Hi Erco,
It was very kind of Limor to give Andy's "What's a Microcontroller?" a nod when she wrote her excellent web tutorials! And we agree, we like the online tutorial concept, which is why we launched learn.parallax.com this spring. Andy has been posting web tutorials there, including Get Started with the Propeller Board of Education (a Spin tutorial), Robotics with the Board of Education Shield for Arduino, and Robotics with the Propeller Boe-Bot (under construction).
In addition, the Stamps in Class Mini Projects that Andy and Jessica originally posted in the forums will have a permanent home on the Learn site; migration has already begun.
And of course, Gordon McComb's collection of Microcontroller KickStarts for various sensors, and supporting several microcontrollers, keeps growing.
Look for many changes to our Learn site this fall; we have lots in store for it. One project will be porting condensed presentations of "What's a Microcontroller?" and "Robotics with the Boe-Bot." And of course, Andy is very busy experimenting with Propeller GCC Beta and we'll see what he creates with it.
-Steph
Those learn.parallax.com tutorials are nice and bite size - very nice way to get acquainted with the new prop board of education. I plan to use them to overcome fear of SD cards.
At a quick glance, that site looks excellent! As Invent-O-Doc said, it looks like I still got me plenty of learnin' to do. If nothing else, perhaps this thread will help direct a few others there who weren't aware of it.
Way to keep ahead of this old coot, Steph!
Erco, you aren't silly. But have you seen how silly easy we've made the servo control code for guys like you and me? There's no excuse...come on over to the Propeller and let's make your contraptions easier and faster to code. Set it and forget it pulse widths, sensor data from a single line of code and colorful display drivers are only a few keystrokes away.
Ken Gracey
Keep glancing; it'll still look excellent many looks later! And not just 'cuz they let me write a thing or two for it, but Stephanie and the Parallax crew are doing a tremendous job sharing and teaching and outreaching.
Keep spreading the word. The site isn't exactly hidden, but it can always use some more exposure.
-- Gordon
Good idea. Mugs, too.
-- Gordon