BX-24 vs. BS2

hacktorious

I attempted to post the following on the basicx yahoo group in response to a post discussing why people would choose basic-stamp over a BX-24. Unfortunately they moderated it and refused to post it.

I'm a newbie to this stuff and I didn't really find much info on the BX-24 when I was trying to find something to start with. I don't think this chip is geared toward newbies.

I think Parallax has great tutorials, education kits, customer service, accessories and marketing. This was a major attraction, and more convenient for me being a newbie. I think many other newbies agree. I think reliability may be another attraction. I have read a lot more reports of problems with BX-24 chips than with the Parallax chips.

The BX-24 guides are very basic, the programming manual for the mouse is only 12 pages.

One big problem I have with the BX-24 is I am not able to find any software for it that runs on Linux. I refuse to use a Windows emulator too.

Now that I know more about microcontrollers in general, and have done some of the Parallax tutorials, I am considering getting a mouse kit for learning how to program the BX-24 and comparing the differences.

I have read various posts about the cost of the BX-24 being less expensive. This is not the case for a newbie though. As a newbie I would need to purchase the mouse kit with the BasicX book for $280. No offense Chris, the book looks great and I plan to purchase it in the near future. The Parallax Boe-Bot kit is much less expensive. I was able to get one on sale for about $125 + shipping on the internet.

Needless to say I chose the Parallax chip. However, this doesn't mean this chip is for everyone, or every solution, or even every newbie. It just works for my purposes in learning and experimenting; we will see what the future holds.

I love the sound of the multitasking language on the BX-24, and it may be well worth the cost of the mouse kit to learn the language.

Does anyone have any advice, or comments for a newbie. Thanks.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Scott

Mike Green

There are two primary reasons to choose a Stamp over one of the "me too" products.

1) Parallax is very heavily into the education business, education about microcontrollers and about robotics and embedded control. They provide a tremendous amount of quality free material on the subject available as downloads and, for a fee, on paper. Most of these materials, although meant for use with their products, are really of general utility and can be used with pretty much any microcontroller, often with only minor changes to the sample programs

2) They provide other tremendous support including these forums and will replace anything they sell that doesn't work (and work with you to try to get it to work first or at least isolate the malfunction).

I would strongly suggest that you consider the Propeller once you feel you are ready for something more complex. It has a tremendous amount of processing capability in a very inexpensive package.

hacktorious

I was actually starting to read up on the Propeller. I don't really know anything about it yet. Is the Spin language at all similar to pbasic?

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Scott

allanlane5

I actually bought a BX-24 a few years ago. The big issue for me against them were that they use a variant of VisualBasic (or QuickBasic, very similar syntax) which is radically different from PBasic. This meant BS2 code (and Parallax support) would be useless with that platform.

This made the company support MUCH more important. And as you pointed out, company support was not sufficient. I also wanted a good debugger -- which also they do not have.

Thus, the Bx-24 remains in its box, while I've now got 3 BOE-Bots and recently purchased the "ping with a servo" kit. I think you made the right decision.

hacktorious

The propeller looks pretty good, but I think as a java developer I might be partial to the Javelin. Although, it is pretty expensive.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Scott

Mike Green

One of the limiting features of the Javelin is the lack of garbage collection.· You have to be very careful with string manipulation so you don't run out of memory due to bits of strings no longer needed, but inaccessible and not reusable.

On the other hand, Spin doesn't have much in the way of string manipulation although a complete library could be written patterned somewhat on the way C does strings.

There is a nice floating point package for the Propeller complete with transcendentals and it's pretty fast.

Chris Savage

Scott,

I would narrow down the questions to a specific processor platform. This thread is in the BASIC Stamp Forum and is covering non-Parallax products, BASIC Stamps, Propeller and Javelin. The best answers will come from the forum related to the question. Once you have that we’ll be able to provide more focused answers. Take care.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support

Mike Green

In many ways, the question of what processor and language to use depends a lot on what you want to do with it and what you're used to. If you really want to stick with Java, the Javelin will probably do most of what you want and you'll have to make compromises on the rest. If you want something simple and straightforward (mostly), then something like PBasic may do. The PBasic Stamps don't have the performance of many of the others you're considering, but that may not be important for what you want to do. You often can off-load tasks to peripheral processors. Many of Parallax's peripherals (like the PING or RFID sensors or the PWMPAL or servo controller) work this way. The Propeller is very powerful, even as a single processor, and has 8 independent processors and a programming language (Spin) with much the capability of C. As yet, it's fairly new and has only begun to amass the volume of supporting documentation and examples associated with the Stamps. It potentially has much greater capability than the others you're considering.

So, now you're overwhelmed with information. You're going to have to prioritize your needs and goals and pick a path. Any path will have advantages and disadvantages. A lot depends on personal tastes. I don't think there's a right answer. There are just choices.

basicstampede

Scott,

I feel compelled to post a reply.· Why?· I bought 2 of the BX-24 a few years ago.· I compared it to Basic Stamp and chose BX-24 because of its power (more ROM, RAM, speed, floating point etc.)· But because of the poor documentation, I found it very hard to use (all I ever did really is flash LED and a few other very rudimentary tasks).· So it·literally sat·collecting dust.

Then I bought Basic Stamp and went through the·superbly written StampWorks in a few weeks.· I learned more in those·few weeks about microcontrollers than I·did in 4 years of Electrical Engineering at a·reputable university.·

I would highly recommend Basic Stamp if you are a beginner.

If you are an expert user and very knowledgeable about electronics, programming in·various languages etc., then you may want to look at·other "me too" products.

My 2 cents for what it's worth.·

basicstampede

One more thing...the Forums.

Most other "me too" product's forum has no where near the number of members as Stamp forum.· Your question on other forums may go for several days unanswered (or even looked at).· I know this personally.

Overall, for a newbie, my recommendation is to start with Parallax.· By the time you "graduate" from Parallax (i.e. become familiar with many of their products), you will find yourself to be a pretty decent electronics engineer.