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Basic Stamp Comeback? — Parallax Forums

Basic Stamp Comeback?

ercoerco Posts: 20,256
edited 2015-05-25 05:54 in BASIC Stamp
I'm loving this sudden flurry of BS1 activity in the Stamp forum. Sometime days and weeks go by with a whole lot of nothing posted. Buck's up to something devious, Sapphire's got I2C on a BS1, all you boys rock!

Is it possible that the BS1 is already making a retro comeback?

Lots of recent BS2 activity, too. Digital pots, current sensor, etc. It's great to see the old girl back in demand.

Comments

  • JonnyMacJonnyMac Posts: 9,045
    edited 2015-05-21 11:00
    The BS1 never went away in my book. EFX-TEK sells hundreds every year, and to some pretty high-brow customers (e.g., a rodent-friendly amusement park in our neck of the woods).

    What I would love to see happen is a port to C of the BS1 compiler so that we could have a cross-platform tool for it. Brett Weir seems to indicate that PropellerIDE may mature into a generic IDE that could support other languages and even other processors.
  • SapphireSapphire Posts: 496
    edited 2015-05-21 13:20
    Erco, Jon,

    I agree, the BS1 is a great little chip. I've got a stash of them, and an RS-485 network at my house with 7 attached to it, reporting alarm status, sprinkler control, weather station, traffic counter and more to a central BS2p monitor. Many of them are completely solar powered, so just one twisted pair connects them all together. Its low current draw and small form factor make it easy to integrate in a small box and run on a battery.

    The I2C challenge was fun. I wanted very precise current and voltage monitoring at the WWV receiver, so I got the INA219s to do that and the DS1621 was a bonus as I had some EEPROM left over. I like to try and use every byte of space!
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,181
    edited 2015-05-21 15:17
    erco wrote: »
    I'm loving this sudden flurry of BS1 activity in the Stamp forum. Sometime days and weeks go by with a whole lot of nothing posted. Buck's up to something devious, Sapphire's got I2C on a BS1, all you boys rock!

    Is it possible that the BS1 is already making a retro comeback?

    Lots of recent BS2 activity, too. Digital pots, current sensor, etc. It's great to see the old girl back in demand.

    Not devious. I'm just revisiting a problem that was partially solved early on by Jon there, and several others, as described in the Archives as applied to the TI83Plus calculator. I first got started with the BS1 and then added the original Two to my collection. However I am pleasantly surprised by the (seemingly) active revival going on here.

    As it happens the Mouser part number quoted here in http://smallrobot.bizland.com/bs2ti.html one of them is considered obsolete by its supplier, probably happened even before the list landed in here, The other isn't what I expected. I used a cable normally designed to connect a computer's line-in point on a soundcard to similar stereo output connection for digitizing content from those devices. I first used a connector available from the (late) Radio Shack, now I used a connector available from Sparkfun https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10588 .

    However.... The connection methods using that one are in fact not reversed, and the programs work. (It turns out I didn't read the page properly the first time.)
    Here:
    Now hook the ground(shield) to the Basic Stamp ground and the tip(red) wire to pin 15 on the Stamp. We do not use the middle(white) wire.
    From [url] http://smallrobot.bizland.com/bs2ti.html [/url]
    Now I have it sending the same stream to the 2X16 display (made by Parallax) and discontinued by the (late) Radio Shack even before their real troubles loomed, and the numbers generated are now seen as ASCII characters.

    And Jon? I agree wholeheartedly. EFX-TEK? Got an address?
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2015-05-21 15:48
    Buck Rogers wrote: »
    EFX-TEK? Got an address?

    Buck, Got Google. Where have you been? :)

    http://www.efx-tek.com/
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,181
    edited 2015-05-22 20:26
    Publison wrote: »
    Buck, Got Google. Where have you been? :)

    http://www.efx-tek.com/

    Right here. Where was "here" for yourself?
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,181
    edited 2015-05-24 14:33
    Hello!
    It is safe to say that the BS1 is a capable device. But for what I want to do next, it is definitely onto the BS2 device.

    Originally the idea was to take the data being delivered from the calculator, when then was displayed on the 2X16 display as ASCII characters, specifically this one "\" (inside the quotes) plus 128, and translate it via external logic into something else, and return it from that logic the Stamp and then display it on the same display.

    Because of the way the Stamp was programmed, it just didn't seem to work out that way.

    So we can consider this thread closed, and onto other things.
  • WhitWhit Posts: 4,191
    edited 2015-05-25 05:53
    In my collection of Parallax Products - I am sorry to say that I never had a BS1 - almost a couple of times...

    Maybe the time is right...
  • WhitWhit Posts: 4,191
    edited 2015-05-25 05:54
    In my collection of Parallax Products - I am sorry to say that I never had a BS1 - almost a couple of times...

    Maybe the time is right...
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