I've been kidding Ken about this being the VGAplus killer. (All in good fun).
This new board looks great! I'm already talking with JimC at Parallax about getting these in stock at Propellerpowered. I can definitely see a version of the Pocket Mini Computer running on this product! A great choice for someone who isn't ready to solder a kit.
Yes, it's a great little board. Everybody needs one (or two!). I hadn't seen the retail price until you pointed me to this, doggiedoc. Best place your orders before I talk to Lauren to raise the retail price. At the moment, we're making less margin than Wal-Mart makes on a toilet bowl brush. . .and they didn't even have to design the brush. We've got a year of work into this little project.
There's also the W5200 board, coming soon. QuickStart add-ons are finally here!
I'm not kidding OBC. Just trying to be straight with you guys - if I wanted to sell cars with a "this deal ends Saturday" kind of frenzy I'd probably do that, but our forumistas warrant a bit of truth about the impending pricing doom on this little board.
Looks great. I've been checking the website for this ever since the mention of it a few days ago in another thread. It is unfortunate that add on modules reduce access to the quickstart's touchpads and LEDs though. (Edit: Oh I see the LEDs are brought up. Neat!) I don't use the pads that often, but its always a welcome addition for demonstrations.
I'll pick one up with my next order, maybe tonight. I should be recommending some propeller products in a paper soon as well, I'll likely add this module to the list of recommended products. Really perfect timing with this module for the paper.
Since Ken spilled the beans about increasing the price I went ahead and ordered one also. If I had more funds I would have ordered more!!!! Oh well, I only have one QS any how and it may be a while before I get back to it. At least I can say I got one at the original price!!! I also broke down and ordered a mystery bag. Figured Parallax treated me right on my Grab bag so why not help put Ken and Chip's kids through college!!!!
Hah! Parallax has done it again.
Last time I put in an order, I asked if anyone would be available to solder the vga/ps2 style adapters onto the adapter board for me. Unfortunately, it couldn't be done, so I had to pass on the expansion board I wanted that time, but with this little gem, I won't need any soldering intervention. I'll be adding one of these to my stocking order as well.
You guys think of everything, and if I didn't know better, I'd swear this was a result of my asking for that soldering help.
Of course, my last order was only a month or two ago, so not possible, but hey, the timing is just too perfect, I think I'll claim this one was done for me anyway.
What do you mean I can't do that?! Of course I can. ... Well, fine, if you insist.
But, it sure was great timing.
I've not bothered ordering a QuickStart board because it didn't seem to offer anything over and above what I already had on various other boards - but with this addition it is probably now worth buying one.
Since Ken spilled the beans about increasing the price I went ahead and ordered one also. If I had more funds I would have ordered more!!!! Oh well, I only have one QS any how and it may be a while before I get back to it. At least I can say I got one at the original price!!! I also broke down and ordered a mystery bag. Figured Parallax treated me right on my Grab bag so why not help put Ken and Chip's kids through college!!!!
Parallax staff has about 20 kids total. About 25% of those kids are Chip's. Putting them all through college will probably run about $3.5M. Let's see - if we only sold QuickStart Human Interface boards at a gross profit of ten bucks each (at the current price) we'd need to sell about 350,000 units. So please order as many as you can today. Thank you for the orders!
And when you guys are done ordering, can you please let me know so I can talk with Lauren about raising the price?
I'm doing my best!!!! I am even trying to convince a couple friends that are teachers and compete in FIRST to cross over to Parallax products!!!!!
How will that work? I'm mentoring a FIRST team, and part of the rules states that all of the main processing for the robot must happen on the cRio. The rules do allow for you to add your own custom hardware, but it's not that easy with the software ecosystem that FIRST uses. Plus, I don't know about other teams, but our team has a distinct lack of skilled programming or electronics talent.
That being said, one of my students is doing BS2 work, and the other is doing Propeller, all in addition to FIRST. So, maybe we'll be able to integrate it.
No, I am not trying to get them to use Parallax products in the FIRST competition, just trying to introduce them to Parallax products and the great support that the forums have to offer.
I've been kidding Ken about this being the VGAplus killer. (All in good fun).
This new board looks great! I'm already talking with JimC at Parallax about getting these in stock at Propellerpowered. I can definitely see a version of the Pocket Mini Computer running on this product! A great choice for someone who isn't ready to solder a kit.
Jeff
Well, it's not a total VGAplus killer.. it doesn't have a socket for SRAM! Anyway I ordered one just for the different form factor. For the PMC I think my VGAPlus will be better due to the extra memory.
I like that all these extension boards for the QuickStart start to show up. There's that wifi one in the pipeline as well, for example. So in preparation for that I have kept buying new QS boards - received another one just a few days ago.
I like that all these extension boards for the QuickStart start to show up. There's that wifi one in the pipeline as well, for example. So in preparation for that I have kept buying new QS boards - received another one just a few days ago.
Paypal was faster on the bank dump than I thought they would be, so I ordered mine this morning, along with a stocking (if they're still available) so glad to have the intro price. Thanks much, I for one appreciate this one. Would like to have ordered more, but that's about all I could spare at the moment. January is my birthday though, so I plan to spend a bit more then to get a few more things off my list. Should be loads of fun.
Comments
This new board looks great! I'm already talking with JimC at Parallax about getting these in stock at Propellerpowered. I can definitely see a version of the Pocket Mini Computer running on this product! A great choice for someone who isn't ready to solder a kit.
Jeff
There's also the W5200 board, coming soon. QuickStart add-ons are finally here!
Hey Ken! Congrats on getting your add-on boards going for Quickstart!
Jeff
Aware and appreciate the efforts put into this product. We'll stock'em where-ever they land.
There appears to be a special "TV out" that will require a special cable for this. Can you enlighten us on this?
Jeff
I'll pick one up with my next order, maybe tonight. I should be recommending some propeller products in a paper soon as well, I'll likely add this module to the list of recommended products. Really perfect timing with this module for the paper.
Last time I put in an order, I asked if anyone would be available to solder the vga/ps2 style adapters onto the adapter board for me. Unfortunately, it couldn't be done, so I had to pass on the expansion board I wanted that time, but with this little gem, I won't need any soldering intervention. I'll be adding one of these to my stocking order as well.
You guys think of everything, and if I didn't know better, I'd swear this was a result of my asking for that soldering help.
Of course, my last order was only a month or two ago, so not possible, but hey, the timing is just too perfect, I think I'll claim this one was done for me anyway.
What do you mean I can't do that?! Of course I can. ... Well, fine, if you insist.
But, it sure was great timing.
I've not bothered ordering a QuickStart board because it didn't seem to offer anything over and above what I already had on various other boards - but with this addition it is probably now worth buying one.
Ross.
Parallax staff has about 20 kids total. About 25% of those kids are Chip's. Putting them all through college will probably run about $3.5M. Let's see - if we only sold QuickStart Human Interface boards at a gross profit of ten bucks each (at the current price) we'd need to sell about 350,000 units. So please order as many as you can today. Thank you for the orders!
And when you guys are done ordering, can you please let me know so I can talk with Lauren about raising the price?
How will that work? I'm mentoring a FIRST team, and part of the rules states that all of the main processing for the robot must happen on the cRio. The rules do allow for you to add your own custom hardware, but it's not that easy with the software ecosystem that FIRST uses. Plus, I don't know about other teams, but our team has a distinct lack of skilled programming or electronics talent.
That being said, one of my students is doing BS2 work, and the other is doing Propeller, all in addition to FIRST. So, maybe we'll be able to integrate it.
No, I am not trying to get them to use Parallax products in the FIRST competition, just trying to introduce them to Parallax products and the great support that the forums have to offer.
I like that all these extension boards for the QuickStart start to show up. There's that wifi one in the pipeline as well, for example. So in preparation for that I have kept buying new QS boards - received another one just a few days ago.
-Tor
Jeff