Excuse the newbie question but I am new to electronics, and I would like to solicite the opinions of the experts here.
I recently purchased an Arduino and have had some fun with it doing the basics. I spend time searching SparkFun and recently noticed their Stamp activity kit. This generated a bunch of questions in my mind.
What’s the difference between Ardunio, Basic Stamp, and other microcontrollers? Which on is better? Which one has the most capability? Which one is easier for a novice? Etc.
Any and all comments are welcome and much appreciated.
Todd
I’ll do my best to make this straightforward. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, as I’ve had limited experience with these hobby systems.
Both Arduino and Basic Stamp are just regular microcontrollers with a boot loader on them that allow you to program them through a regular serial connection.
The Basic Stamp runs an interpreter on the chip that takes the code you’ve written in the Basic Stamp development and environment and translates it as it runs. This is very slow, but allows the development environment to be very easy and controlled.
The Arduino development environment is much closer to a standard environment for microcontroller development. Code is compiled into a program that the controller runs directly. The Arduino has become very popular as it is fairly powerful on it’s own and can work as a standard microcontroller stepping stone. The BASIC Stamp can be useful, but it’s essentially a dead end. The language is not transferable to another controller and you can’t really take anything away from it other than the most basic microcontroller concepts if you later want to move to something more powerful.
Don’t wast your money on the basic stamp, It is not good for much more than flashing LED’s and other very limited/SLOW things
Actualy I am A bit disappointed in SF for even selling these things 
Stamps are fine for beginners who want to learn something about how to use microprocessors with electronic devices. The main drawing point of the Stamp is the documentation: essentially everything that Parallax makes comes with documentation meant for absolute beginners.
That being said, Stamps are slow, they only use integer arithmetic, and they’re relatively expensive. Parallax makes a higher end (and cheaper) processor called the Propeller, which is considerably faster and more capable than the Stamps, and provides excellent documentation for that processor as well.
If you expect to stay with these things for any length of time, you will outgrow the Stamp line, but it’s a nice educational entry to this stuff.
I started with the BS and i really wish i had NOT wasted all that time.
It just couldn’t keep up with the simplest things. check a few sensors–>controll a few motoprs, display data. it was to slow
think about it, paralax says the basic stamp 2 does 4,000 instructions/sec
a dsPic does 40,000,000 instructions/sec
I got the OOPIC-R. That was a waste of time for me.
You can’t really compare instruction per second as the Stamp instructions are much higher level. I’m not saying it’s not slow, though.
TheDirty:
I got the OOPIC-R. That was a waste of time for me.
You can’t really compare instruction per second as the Stamp instructions are much higher level. I’m not saying it’s not slow, though.
Much higher level?
I just looked at a 612 instruction C program, It compiled to just under 1300 ASM instructions. so by that my DsPic runs at just under 20,000,000 instructions per second.
So, again, the Stamp is almost worthless it runs ONE instruction for every 5000 C Instructions A DsPic Runs!!
SpinDrah:
So, again, the Stamp is almost worthless it runs ONE instruction for every 5000 C Instructions A DsPic Runs!!
It simply is not true that “the Stamp is almost worthless”. Here’s a page of educational projects most of which use Stamp modules:
http://www.parallax.com/tabid/361/Default.aspx
Here is a very high tech rocket launch from a balloon using Stamps:
http://www.parallax.com/tabid/550/Default.aspx
I could post quite a bit more of this stuff, if you really needed to see it, but the fact is that Stamp modules are not “almost worthless”. They have a set of limitations (including slow speed). So does every other processor out there. Parallax offers better support than almost any other choice (In fact, they are very probably at the very top of that list).
If you needed high processing speed and not support, and you bought Stamps, you made a mistake. Your regret does not make Stamps “useless”, and it’s simply false to claim that they are.
SpinDrah:
Much higher level?
I just looked at a 612 instruction C program, It compiled to just under 1300 ASM instructions. so by that my DsPic runs at just under 20,000,000 instructions per second.
So, again, the Stamp is almost worthless it runs ONE instruction for every 5000 C Instructions A DsPic Runs!!
You just restated your answer like it was going to be ‘more correct’ if you just said it differently.
Yes, higher level. It would be something like the difference between RISC and CISC microprocessor instructions per second. RISC will generally do more instructions per second at the expense of super simplifying it’s instruction set and allowing the compiler or program writer to optimize it.
I have not looked at the bytecode for the Stamp Interpreter and I doubt I will, but usually these are very high level and may have intrinsic function calls within a single bytecode.
Like I said, I’m not stating it’s not slow, but you can’t compare instruction to instruction in these different systems and show meaningful results.
Look i am not trying to insalt you! I just Want to help people understand that the Stamp Is a Very Slow Chip.
you think that rocket project is a big deal? all the chip has to do is keep track of a few sensors and then launch a rocket, BUT IT TOOK 6 BASIC STAMPS TO DO THAT!!
that is a simple task that a real microcontroller could handle in sleep mode 99.9% of the time! but it took 6 BS’s
I think you are held back by the basic stamp, you think you are using a real microcontroller, but you are not.
and as for not being able to compare the Instruction times, what if i Put it like this:
A real microcontroller will run a WHOLE 500 line C Program 10 times in the time it takes A Basic stamp to run ONE Instruction!!!
SpinDrah:
Look i am not trying to insalt you! I just Want to help people understand that the Stamp Is a Very Slow Chip.
We understand that already. But you also said that it’s “almost worthless”, and you seem to be so intently focused on processor speed that you can’t understand why that is simply false.
Suggestion: pretend for a moment that all processors run at exactly the same speed. Would you believe that they’re all of equal value then? You shouldn’t. Your notion that “slow” means “worthless” is simply false, as I demonstrated with those links.
Does that help you understand better?
In another recent thread about different processors someone sagely pointed out that what he looks for first is not the processor specs, but the quality of the programming environment/tools. Arduinos are valuable to me not so much because they’re faster than Stamps, but because the ADC is built-in and easy to use. Directly programming AVR chips is less useful to me than Arduino because the Arduino programming environment is so easy to use.
There are a LOT of things other than processing speed that distinguish processors. The Stamps are terribly slow, but as I’ve pointed out a couple of times, really shine in terms of documentation, especially for beginners. There are plenty of projects that can be handled just fine by Stamps, as I pointed out, and if you’re on a deadline, having that documentation may just make the difference between completing your project and not completing it. I flew a radio telemetry device this past summer using a Stamp to control the receiver base. I’m porting it to faster processors over the winter, but if I hadn’t had the Stamp available to me, I wouldn’t have had time to set it up in time for the 2009 flying season. That’s of great value.
Again, if you regret buying Stamps because they wouldn’t do what you wanted them to do, that’s a shame, but your regret does not make Stamps “almost worthless”.
sylvie369:
Again, if you regret buying Stamps because they wouldn’t do what you wanted them to do, that’s a shame, but your regret does not make Stamps “almost worthless”.
I don’t regret buying it because it didn’t do what i wanted, I regret buying it because it held me back for a year.
you’re right my regret doesn’t make the stamp worthles. its lack of power makes it worthless for anything more than the simplest of projects.
Now enogh of this already, if you like the stamp so much keep using it, i’m just giving people a pov from someone that has used both.
Sigh. As someone else has already pointed out, repeating yourself over and over again does not change the fact that you’re wrong.
Obviously you bought some Stamps without having first looked into whether or not they’d do what you wanted to do, and you’re upset at yourself for having done so. You’re taking your anger out on the Stamp modules. You seem to have decided despite the obvious evidence to the contrary that I’m some kind of Stamp fanatic. In fact I use Arduino and Propeller more than I use Stamps - I simply haven’t blindered myself to the fact that Stamps have a useful place.
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To the original poster (Todd):
Sorry for the little detour in your thread.
The Arduino is by any reasonable measure “more capable”, in that it’s faster, has that built-in ADC, nice libraries and a variety of shields. The Stamp is quite slow, and more expensive, but easier to learn, and very well documented. It’s at least marginally easier to learn for a novice, though the Arduino is quite easy as well. And regardless of what the other poster says, Stamps can be used in a wide variety of interesting projects.
If you already have an Arduino and it’s working for you, I don’t think there’s a good argument to be made for moving over to Stamps. It might take you longer to figure some things out than you would as you worked through one of Parallax’s texts, but there’s enough support on the various forums to get you through things. I use Arduino for most of my projects these days - I’m very pleased with it.
Group,
I want to thank everyone for the information and spirited exchange. Your exchange reminded me the year I lived with a bunch of engineers in training. Their conversations went way over my head, but they were fun to listen to.
I must be entering Intermediate level because I understood most of what was said. I get that the Basic Stamp is slow and limited. The code is interpreted on the read and not pre-compiled into assembly (?) to run faster and smoother.
I am glad I have my Ardunio. I guess I will save that Parallax BS money for an Ardunio Mega.
Thanks!
Todd
Sounds like a good decision. Enjoy!