Bs2px!!!

kb2hap

Hey bugg is this the BS3 you've been waiting for

http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=BS2PX-IC

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DTQ

Paul Baker

Its nice to see Parallax starting to incorporate more of the native features of the SX under the control of PBASIC.

Jonb

I can't help but wonder where they get such interesting PCB colors...

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Paul Baker

just part of the manufacturing process, many board fabs offer a variety of colors for the soldermask. For instance 4pcb.com offers Green, Blue, Black, Red, Clear and·White with thier standard fab and 2 color gradient blending is availible through thier custom fab.

PLJack

I just now saw this new stamp on the home page.
Came here to see what's up, bam, first message at the top of the list.
It sure is a beautiful looking IC.

Parallax is synonymous with class.
Has been that way from day one.
In my eyes that is a HUGE advantage over its competitors.

According to the new BASIC Stamp Module Comparison chart the new chip
is a screamer.
32 MHz Turbo, up from 25.
~19,000 instructions/sec. up from 12,000.
55 mA Run / 450 µA Sleep, up from 40/350. (down more like[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Serial (19200 baud), up from 9600.
PBASIC commands 63, up from 61 (Anyone know what the two new commands are)


Very impressive.

Jack

Update:
New commands:

COMPARE Mode, Variable
Function
Enable or disable comparator, compare voltages on P1 and P2 and retrieve comparison result to store in
Variable.
• Mode is a variable/constant/expression (0 – 2) that enables or disables the comparator (input pins
P1 and P2) and determines if the optional comparator output pin (pin P0) is enabled or not. See
Table 3 for an explanation of the Mode values.
• Variable is a variable (usually a bit) in which the comparison result is stored.

CONFIGPIN Mode, PinMask
Function
Configure special properties of I/O pins.
• Mode is a variable/constant/expression (0 – 3), or one of four predefined symbols, that specifies
the I/O pin property to configure: Schmitt Trigger, Logic Threshold, Pull-up Resistor or Output
Direction. See Table 4 for an explanation of Mode values.
• PinMask is a variable/constant/expression (1 – 65535) that indicates how Mode is applied to I/O
pins. Each bit of PinMask corresponds to an individual I/O pin. A high bit (1) enables the Mode
and a low bit (0) disables the Mode on the corresponding I/O pin.

Post Edited (PLJack) : 4/14/2005 11:11:15 PM GMT

Paul Baker

PLJack said...
PBASIC commands 63, up from 61 (Anyone know what the two new commands are)

On pages·3 and 5 of the overview doc http://www.parallax.com/dl/docs/prod/stamps/BASICStamp2px.pdf·states that these two commands are COMPARE (analog comparator) and CONFIGPIN (pin configuration, duh).

allanlane5

Ooh, that's NICE! 45 mA run at 32 Mhz. 19,000 Instruction per sec. Very nice.

CPUMAN

Nicely done Parallax. I want one! Guess I'll need to save some money aside from my experimenting budget.

Chris

kelvin james

Well, i gotta say, great job guys. Well thought out, and obviously have taken into consideration some of the operation issues that people have requested. The onboard hardware such as the pullups, threshold, etc., is a great idea. The comparator is nice too, being able to run independant of the stamp itself, looks like this could work as a true interupt, if not mistaken. Still a little disappointed in the ram variable size, but since i don't know the tech issues of designing a chip like this, i won't be critical just based on that.
Overall, looks good, and i am going to buy one to replace the old bs24p i have here. When will the updated editor be available? And, what is the "spstr" command ?

kelvin

Forrest

The amount of RAM is probably restricted by the CPU used on the BS2PX - which is the Ubicom SX48. The Ubicom SX48 has 262 bytes of RAM - and PBasic lets you access 38 bytes (I/O+variable) plus 128 bytes (scratchpad RAM). The remaining 96 bytes is probably used internally by PBasic to transfer PBasic tokens to/from the EEPROM, etc.

Jon Williams

Kelvin,

If you're familiar with pin polling in the BS2p family you can use that with the comparator in the BS2px. If you want "true interrupts" it may be time to make the move to the raw SX. For example, yesterday I finished an SX28-based MIDI device that receives MIDI data in the background (interrupt driven serial buffer) and the foreground program (all BASIC -- SX/B) processes the stream and will activate/deactivate outputs based on the data.

Forrest is right about the RAM restrictions.

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Jon Williams
Applications Engineer, Parallax
Dallas, TX· USA

Gadgetman

So... Basically this is a BS2p24 with 'go faster stripes' and voltage comparator?

If I didn't already have the BS2p24, I'd buy it, but at the moment I think I'll hold out for the next miniature masterpiece from Parallax.
(The fact that I'm very short of money at the moment, and that my usual distributor haven't listed it, yet, may also have something to do with it )

Any other reason to download the new editor when it's released?
(Any bugfixes?)

dandreae

It is always good idea to download the latest editor.· Yes, there is a bug fix and it has to do with a com port issue that is very· rare with Windows.

Dave

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Dave Andreae

Tech Support
dandreae@parallax.com
www.parallax.com

·

KenM

To all,

Beware of the internal pull up resistors....it·might bite you one day.

The pull up resistors are generally termed "weak pull ups".

Parallax has no control over that.

I have never had a problem using the pull up resistors with a simple switch to ground.

However, the pull up resitors did not work reliably in the circuit shown in the link below.
http://www.parallax.com/sx/contest/comfort_meter/comfort%20meter%20schematic.bmp


The input to the SX was tied to an open collector of a 2n3904 transistor. When the 2n3904 was "off" the input should read high......sometimes it did, sometimed it did not.
This must have something to do with the impeadance of the open collector.

I ended up turning off the feature and using 4.7k ohm pull ups.

Most seem to agree the pull up resistor is approximately 20k to 50k ohms.

I am glad to see Parallax listening to thier customers and incorporating features requested.


·· http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?p=528749

Good job Parallax team!!!!



Post Edited (KenM) : 4/17/2005 2:34:18 PM GMT

Tracy Allen

Ken, I'm surprised by your caution with respect to the weak pullups. I wonder why the 2N3904s in your contest circuit were biased on a little bit? With a 20koohm pullup, they would have to be sinking about 200 microamps at the collector before the SX pin would see it as a low state, and that is several orders of maginitude higher than the leakage of a 2N3904 collector. IAn additional resistor of 49k directly from the base to the emittter, to assure that the transistor is fully off. I don't see how the problem could be blamed on the weak pullups, though.

Yes , the pullup is around 20k, and sources about 250 microamps when the input is shorted to ground. I think the weak pullup is actually implemented as an FET in the silicon, so it is somewhat nonlinear and temperature dependent (i.e., don't use it as a reference for a thermistor or as a source for accurate RCtime measurements!).

It is still a good idea to use a protection resistor of around 220 ohms in series with a pin. Remember that the protection resistor will form a voltage divider with the weak pullup. With 220 ohms, the burden is only 0.05 volt, so that is nowhere near the switching threshold.

I'm really glad that Parallax is including the weak pullups and wonder if there are any plans to implement the additional two instructions in a version 1.4 BS2p or a version 1.2 BS2pe?

Kelvin, the SPSTR is a modifier for the SERIN command (also for I2CIN and and LCDIN). It is available on all the Stamps that have scratchpad RAM, and allows the command to stream incoming data directly into the scratchpad. It is not new to the BS2px. See the help file.

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Tracy Allen
www.emesystems.com

Jon Williams

SPSTR is only on the BS2p family. The BS2e and BS2sx also have the Scratchpad RAM, but don't include the SPSTR modifier.

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Jon Williams
Applications Engineer, Parallax
Dallas, TX· USA

KenM

Tracy and others,

My caution comes from my experience described.

It is hard to imagine the 2n3904 not being completly off. The off state is 68K to ground via the hexidecimal switch.

My caution also comes from hearing others at the SX forum (when it was on yahoo) experiencing similar troubles with the pull ups.

Tracy, I completely agree with your assesment.


Anyway, maybe I should·delve into·the·same·circuit·on a breadboard and see if I can duplicate the phenomenom.

ken

kelvin james

As you know, i am not a electronics genius by any means, but after using the stamp for a couple of years now, and reading hundreds of posts here, i think parallax did a good thing with pin configuration operation. It is all about testing and experimenting. Whether the pullup is weak or not is arguable, if it works in normal testing applications, which i assume it will, then it has served the purpose of simplicity of the overall circuit design. And the idea of just "enabling" a pullup on a pin, as opposed to doing the actual wiring with the resistor on the breadboard is the real bonus to making life a lot less complicated. I would imagine the onboard pullup won't be the answer to every situation, but it is a nice option of having software control of. And the pin configuration even gets better, as now you have the option through threshold and the schmitt trigger to customize the incoming signal input voltage, to properly interface with the type of sensor/peripheral being used. And that can be done with simple software experimenting, rather than a lot of playing around with components ( that have to be purchased), and hopefully wired properly to prevent any damage. As Jon pointed out, yes i will be moving to a SX, just waiting for the new board to be released, and though the thought of having to learn a new programming language is pretty intimidating, i will look at it as being a new and rewarding challenge. I am sure to be whining and grovelling in the SX forum at a future date.

kelvin

CPUMAN

Well look at it this way once you know one assembly languages you pretty much know them all as it doesn't take much to learn another assembly once you know one.· It has amazed me that when I learned assembly all of a sudden code on completely diffrent MCUs/CPUs makes perfect sense eventhough I never learned or used that MCU's assembly before.

But as for a more on topic point yes I to am really happy to see software control pullups... saving a lot of wiring grief for prototyping.

Chris

dandreae

Gadgetman,

Any other reason to download the new editor when it's released?
(Any bugfixes?)

---Bug Fixes--- in the new editor version 2.2

Fixed Serial routines to open any COM port number (1 to 256).

Fixed bugs that caused the software to except when user tried to invoke functions through the command line such as:
·· stampw.exe /tokenize something.bs2 > output.txt
· --or--
·· stampw.exe /download soemthing.bs2 > output.txt

Enhanced Enumerate COM Port routine to work properly with a rare case where the computer has more than on GUID for the
reserved name 'PORTS' in the registry.

Dave

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Dave Andreae

Tech Support
dandreae@parallax.com
www.parallax.com

·

Chris Savage

kb2hap said...
Hey bugg is this the BS3 you've been waiting for
http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=BS2PX-IC

Hello all,

·· Just to clarify the position on the BS2px, it is an enhancement to the BS2p family of BASIC Stamps adding in some functionality customers have requested, including more speed.· However, it is definately not to be considered the BS3.

·· When we're ready for a BS3 introduction, fanfare will preceed all postings!· Just kidding.· But seriously, any BS3 we release will be more of an improvement over the BS2 than the BS2 was over the BS1, rest-assured.·

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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com

KenM

I agree somewhat... I recently used a PIC12F509 for a small project that requied an 8 pin Dip package.

Microchip's documentation on the "how" portion stinks compared to parallax.

CPUMAN said...

Well look at it this way once you know one assembly languages you pretty much know them all as it doesn't take much to learn another assembly once you know one.· It has amazed me that when I learned assembly all of a sudden code on completely diffrent MCUs/CPUs makes perfect sense eventhough I never learned or used that MCU's assembly before.

But as for a more on topic point yes I to am really happy to see software control pullups... saving a lot of wiring grief for prototyping.

Chris