Basic Stamp 2 cost
offlanders
Posts: 9
in BASIC Stamp
I promise I'm not trying to troll here, just a question... What is the reasoning for the Basic Stamp 2 price point of $49? If you buy 1000+ they are will to cut the price to $25 (which sounds considerably more reasonable and closer to the actual build cost).
As an individual who grew up with a BS2, and has gotten a half dozen people or so into the hobby of programing and electronics, its getting harder and harder to recommend Parallex's BS2 product line to beginners when you have a considerable amount of variety available now. Meanwhile Parallax has stayed firm on its price for about the last decade. The reason I bring this up is you can get a Raspberry PI 3 (a full computer with robust IO, WIFI, Blue tooth, network and graphics support with an equally active development community of hobbyists) for nearly 2/3rds the price. I'm not so much complaining as just wanting to know what continues to justifies the comparatively high cost against what seems like perfectly acceptable alternatives?
As an individual who grew up with a BS2, and has gotten a half dozen people or so into the hobby of programing and electronics, its getting harder and harder to recommend Parallex's BS2 product line to beginners when you have a considerable amount of variety available now. Meanwhile Parallax has stayed firm on its price for about the last decade. The reason I bring this up is you can get a Raspberry PI 3 (a full computer with robust IO, WIFI, Blue tooth, network and graphics support with an equally active development community of hobbyists) for nearly 2/3rds the price. I'm not so much complaining as just wanting to know what continues to justifies the comparatively high cost against what seems like perfectly acceptable alternatives?
Comments
These days, they are up against things like Silabs TOOLSTICK850-B-SK, which is sub $10, for a Module with Flash MCU, 25MHz, with ADC, and Hardware Debug included.
This article explains things a little bit and how you can cut costs by going OEM. :nerd:
http://savagecircuits.com/index.php/projects/18-basic-stamp-projects/18-bs2-oem-lite
Me thinks you forgot the attachment?
Thank you for providing the article Chris. I read through it and had a few follow up questions. But first I want to say I think Parallax has an excellent line of educational products, and I owe a great deal of my early programing successes to my basic stamp 2 board of education that I bought so many years ago. Having said that please don't read into my question/comment as an attack, I'm genuinely curious in Parallax's reasoning.
I noticed the article you provided was written in 2001, and 15 years ago I would agree the single board, logic module was somewhat less prevalent, justifying the price point. However today's market place is full of options showing the cost has come down (chips are cheaper then ever) and the demand has increased (more users then ever). How can the Raspberry Pi, arduino, picaxe, Atmega, BeagleBone, and a host of others offer products with more features, comparable support, active development communities for, in many cases, half the price? Meanwhile, the largely unchanged BS2, on the surface, would seem to indicate Parallax is out of touch with what the competition has to offer. This is especially frustrating when on Parallax's own website they will sell BS2s at half the price if you are willing to buy 1000+ units, almost acknowledging they are excessively priced. Is it Parallax's plan to do away with the BS2 line altogether, and non-competitive pricing is the first step?
Regarding your comment about building an OEM device, my interest in the BS2 is as an educational one, for someone to learn the basic language, and circuitry theory in a forgiving environment with minimum outside help. However at $49.00, a small mistake could easily be a costly one. When a work mate of my mine a few months ago wanted to get some hands on experience with basic language coding in an integrated circuit environment, for the first time I pointed them in the direction of Micro Engineering Labs, Pic Basic Pro. The initial cost of $198 (for programmer kit and compiler software) is offset by the fact, the most catastrophic failure on the bread board would only cost you a $1.83 (pic 16f882).
I like Parallax, but my wallet is starting to have reservations.
The BASIC Stamp Activity Kit is more suited for novices since the Homework Board comes with a built-in BS2 along with protection resistors on all the I/O pins.
When I first started that kit was selling for $100, but now it's $80.
https://www.parallax.com/product/90005
Parallax also has excellent customer service if something is defective or not working properly.
Parallax puts items on sale every few months and that's when I've gotten most of the items I have.
This question comes up quite often and I couldn't help but read into a least part of your message about support. You are correct that there are many options out there that are cheaper and even more powerful. Our own Propeller chip is cheaper and more powerful than most other options.
First and foremost though it is kind of a pet-peeve of mine when someone compares a single-board computer to a microcontroller. They're nothing alike. And while SBCs like the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone are arguably more powerful than many microcontrollers, unless you're a software developer on these platforms they're arguably more difficult to program and in many cases more difficult to interface to sensors and other devices that are commonly used with microcontrollers. It's easy when you have the resources of an entire PC to call something more powerful, but then that is a very subjective perception based more on the application than overall practical use.
The other thing is support. You mentioned comparable support from all these other product lines, yet I don't see it. There aren't many companies that have toll-free tech support where you get to talk directly to someone who knows the product and/or can get the information you need in a timely manner. Many companies deal with their support through email or forums only and can take days to respond. Some platforms like the Arudino have only community support. For a developer that can crush a project timeline. Even for a student or hobbyist it can cost a grade or just result in frustration. Support is one of the biggest things that drew me to Parallax in the first place. The other thing was resources.
Once again, when it comes to most products it is rare to see companies offer complete educational curriculum that teach you how to use the product with no previous knowledge. I am self-taught and I remember early on the difficulties I had learning the 6502 and 68xx systems until I had a mentor who greatly helped me. Years later when I found Parallax I didn't need a mentor to start learning the products. There were so many educational resources, example codes and supporting products that I was able to get up and running on a completely new platform in a very short time and in fact, then ended up supporting that product line just a few years later.
In my article I explain how the BS2 Modules are made up. The reason is the cost of making such a module and making them here in the USA rather than in China. Even an OEM Kit is under $25.00 (half the cost of the module) but it is made up of through hole parts, must be soldered and has a serial port connection. But the available support and resources for the BS2 trump anything else I have seen.
I would say that if cost is an issue but you want decent support consider the Propeller Chip. :nerd:
And as it happens I'm also quite self taught. Largely for the 6502. And the PC.... Also some of the other gadgets that our correspondent describes.
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Strange no robots here.
That's awesome. The 6502 was the first processor I cut my teeth on. Loved it from the moment I got an assembler for the VIC-20! The Z80 will always be my favorite CPU to have worked with. Many fond memories. The About Me page on my website gets into a little more detail about my history, but it is also somewhat condensed, so not complete.
I've been trying to get some conversation going on over at the ZappBots forums. Feel free to join us if you want to talk in general about this kind of stuff.
THIS right here is why I still use the Propeller (and sometimes the Stamp) instead of any other microcontrollers. I self taught myself the BASIC Stamp 2 back in ~2007 and was amazed at how the available information from Parallax made it so easy. I moved on to the Propeller after attending the first "Propeller Expo" at Parallax and again, was amazed at how easy I could learn by downloading demo code, making tweaks, and instantly seeing results. I have tried to teach myself C for the Arduino and never could get past the fact that the sample projects I tried were so much easier with the Propeller. I tried Cypress PSoC but their IDE and support was nothing but frustrating for someone trying to learn.
As for the BS2 cost, I have always suggested to people to make their own BS2 from the interpreter chips to save cost and give them an end item that is exactly what they want. I think my last design using the BS2 interpreter chip had a BOM cost less than $18.
If this strange design, BS2 standing on a BOE, 4X20 display on P14, and the calculator, connected to P15, with logic currently connected to the first four pins, works out, that's next.
It might be the BS2 OEM, then again, it might be what you're aiming for.
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Strange still no robots.
So this reminds me of a point I may have forgotten to bring up on my website when I mentioned my last BOM cost was <$15.00. The hobbyist may still balk at that price, but OEM isn't really intended for the hobbyists. It's a way for a production design to reduce costs. That said I think those looking at the cost forget to factor in the cost of development.
When considering the development time when using a BASIC Stamp 2 versus some other microcontroller (before the Propeller came out) the cost of the code development was often quite high in some commercial designs. To this day I still hear from companies that have designs from 15+ years ago that use the BS2 and can easily go back and update their code. I heave heard from just as many "other" MCU users who are frustrated by the lack of support and tools for whatever was used in their design.
Quite simply, when I used it in commercial design, the overall best benefit was the minimal development time to get something up and running.
Later there was the BS2e, more program slots, and then the BS2pe. At first I was using the modules, but with the BS2pe Parallax supported me well with the transition to the OEM interpreter chip as I built it onto my own SMT boards with the power supplies, ADCs etc needed for my core applications. Now I'm building all the new stuff with the Propeller, but I still coming back to the Stamp and supporting existing customers.
How about competition from things like micromite? It's been mentioned here on the forums before as it was paired with the propeller in the micromite companion. Maybe this hasn't been a problem for Parallax because it's for a different type of user, but it must be having some impact? I don't see any evolution of the stamp line, so maybe not. As far as support it's not open source, but I believe that one can ask for the source and there are the thebackshed forums. It reminds me more running basic on RISC OS or an Atari/C64/TSR-80 in that you can extend it with machine code. So the people just comfortable with simple basic can ask for things like support for RGB LED strips, and someone delivers a bunch of magic #'s for them.
People are doing some fun things (Think Model 100) with it too - http://www.thebackshed.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8160&PN=11
That's an interesting idea. You could request the source and look into feasibility and ask permission. I see that someone did an ARM port.
https://hackaday.io/project/9692-ello-2m
Yeah it would be interesting to see if MM Basic could be ported to the P2 when we get silicon.
That mechanical design is inspired !!
I see that uses a SSD1963, so maybe a Two x P2 design would replace {SSD1963+MIPS+PIC} , allowing ONE part code to manage all aspects ?
I'd also say Project Oberon would be another valid candidate.
You do not need P2 silicon to start porting
hehe, yes, good point...