Microcontroller Options

The most obvious choice in the beginning was the BASIC Stamp from Parallax Inc. Some of the higher-end versions such as the Basic Stamp 2p or even the Javelin Stamp (Java) looked enticing. The lower-end versions including the Basic Stamp seem to be very limited in both capabilities and performance. However even the high-end processors may not have the speed to carry out timing-intensive operations or measurements. The Basic Stamp chips are relatively expensive and clearly customers are paying for the included Basic interpreter.

I also investigated the PIC series of microcontrollers that seem to have a large following and multiple versions of the chip. Frankly I was scared off by the need to have a separate programmer and that I needed to buy a compiler. I didn’t want to invest time in the assemblers, even if they were free.

Dr Peter Anderson’s site is where I first found BasicX and also discusses the PICAXE series of chips. The ability to program in BASIC and then later convert to native PIC assembler is enticing. However to my knowledge there is no built-in support for multitasking.

The OOPIC also looks interesting. My initial concern is that I know OO tends to take up more memory and processing power than other languages but there is certainly some benefit to using a language such as Basic or Java to script lower-level objects that multitask to work together cooperatively. This is probably my second choice to BasicX that I would like to investigate further, if I ever get the free time.

I also briefly investigated programming to Atmel 8-bit RISC microcomputers that are used for BasicX. In my initial investigation there also seemed to be a large investment needed in programmers and compilers. As I later found out this is not ther case and programmers for AVRs can be constructed quite cheaply.

Lego Mindstorms provide a multitasking environment but I didn’t regard it as a general-purpose solution in that it has a limited number of ports and functionality. I recognize that many people have had lots of success building robots and other projects using it and that there is a large support network.