Basic Stamp II is kinda cool.

1. Basic Stamp IIis kinda cool. - 2048 Bytes of EEPROM(non-volatile) - Clock speed of 20 MHz. - Holds 600 lines of code in EEPROM - executes an average of 4000 instructions/sec - 32 Bytes of Ram(16 of it for variable storage) - 16 I/O pins, plus two synchronous serial pins - Programmable with a PC/Mac through a serial connection with PBasic.

2. Micro-controllers and Single-board Computers: A Micro-controller is an integrated circuit that contains many of the same items that a desktop computer has, such as CPU, memory, etc., but does not include any “human interface” devices like a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. Micro-controllers are mostly designed for machine control applications, rather than human interaction. Micro-controllers paired with all the peripherals they need to be self-sufficient, such as the Basic Stamp II IC, are sometimes called “single-board computers.”

3. The Board of Education • BSII micro-controller • bread-board • power supply • 9 volt connection • serial cable

4. BSII Carrier Board

5. Prototyping or “bread” board Breadboard connections: The horizontal black lines show how the “sockets” are connected underneath the breadboard. This means you don’t have to plug two wires into one socket since the socket to the right or left is connected. I/O Pin connections are along left power connections are along the top “Vdd” is +5 volts “Vss” is ground

6. Sensing Basic Sensing Schemes 1) detect ON/OFF (switches) 2) determine resistance using a resistor/capacitor timing circuit (RCTime) 3) read the frequency of a pulse given off by a device or circuit (PulseIn) 4) use analog to digital converter (A/D) to convert voltage value to number understood by micro-controller

7. RCTime Circuits

8. RCTIME RCTIME pin, state, resultVariable Count time while pin remains in state—usually to measure the charge/ discharge time of resistor/capacitor (RC) circuit. • Pin is a variable/constant (0–15) that specifies the I/O pin to use. This pin will be placed into input mode and left in that state when the instruction finishes. • State is a variable or constant (1 or 0) that will end the RCtime period. • ResultVariable is a variable in which the time measurement (0 to 65535 in 2µs units) will be stored.

9. Essentials Comments ‘ this is a comment Declarations foo var byte Value assignments foo = foo + 1 Integer Math Labels Label: Goto, gosub, return Ins and Outs (pins)

10. Variable and Constant Declarations Save memory by using the smallest size variable necessary to hold your values ‘ Declare variables. mouse var bit ‘ Value can be 0 or 1. cat var nib ‘ Value in range 0 to 15. dog var byte ‘ Value in range 0 to 255. rhino var word ‘ Value in range 0 to 65535. ‘ Declare constants. cheers con 3

11. LOOPS The first thing you should do is make your program into a loop so it is always running. In basic you make a loop by labeling the top of the the loop and using the GOTO command at the bottom of the loop MYLABLE: 'This sets the label (note :) HIGH 2 'Turn pin 2 on. PAUSE 1000 'Pause for about 1 sec. LOW 2 'Turn pin 2 of PAUSE 1000 'Pause for about 1 sec. GOTO MYLABLE ‘Sends it back up to top of loop To make a loop you first have to understand labels. You can label a part of your program just by putting the label name followed by a colon. The first line in the example set the label MYLABLE. You can call your labels anything you like. Anything following the single quote mark is considered a comment, which BASIC ignores. The lines between the label and the goto are repeated. The last line sends the program back up to the label MYLABLE and starts the loop over.

12. Serial and Analog I/O SERIAL SERIN Serial input SEROUT Send data serially (will use for MIDI output) ANALOG I/O RCTIME Measure an RC charge/discharge time. PULSIN To measure pulsewidth of incoming signals; useful for some commercial sensors with builtin A/Ds.

13. RCTime Circuits