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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: BASIC for STAMP clone
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 1994 16:00:39 GMT
Message-ID: <CwA756.3sE@armory.com>
References: <Donald.Heller.187.00105F28@jpl.nasa.gov> <BILLW.94Sep13015023@glare.cisco.com> <Donald.Heller.196.000AFAE3@jpl.nasa.gov>
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In article <Donald.Heller.196.000AFAE3@jpl.nasa.gov>,
Don Heller <Donald.Heller@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>In article <BILLW.94Sep13015023@glare.cisco.com> billw@glare.cisco.com (William ) writes:
>>Xref: llyene alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt:4293 comp.robotics:10084
>>Path: llyene!netline-fddi.jpl.nasa.gov!wiretap.spies.com!sgiblab!news.cygnus.com!kithrup.com!news.Stanford.EDU!ames!cronkite.cisco.com!cronkite!billw
>>From: billw@glare.cisco.com (William )
>>Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,comp.robotics
>>Subject: Re: BASIC for STAMP clone
>>Date: 13 Sep 94 01:50:23
>>Organization: cisco Systems, Inc.
>>Lines: 5
>>Message-ID: <BILLW.94Sep13015023@glare.cisco.com>
>>References: <Donald.Heller.187.00105F28@jpl.nasa.gov>
>>NNTP-Posting-Host: glare.cisco.com
>>In-reply-to: Donald.Heller@jpl.nasa.gov's message of Mon, 12 Sep 1994 16:22:11
>
>
>>Geez, don't you think parallax is entitled to a LITTLE money for coming
>>up with this thing?  They don't charge very much for a stamp chip with
>>the basic already burnt in...
---------------------------------------------
Well, a new unprogrammed 16C56 is $3.75 from Parallax, whereas even in sets
of two BASIC Stamp 16C56's plus the buck and a quarter serial EEPROM's and
the ceramic resonators, (cheap), is $39 dollars. To me, this breaks down to
them charging at least $16 for a chip WITH BASIC and about $4 without
BASIC. This is the SAME chip! So they are charging you $12 a pop for
programming the chip, which takes all of two seconds on our Parallax
programmer! That's $12 over and over for the same rather short BASIC
interpreter!! Anybody paid $6 per 1K for program code lately, without even
counting the media it's on??? I didn't think so either. This is why I think
we need a major call for someone to come up with either a licensable code
for a BASIC interpreter that can be used over and over or simply a public
domain code for these things to act as a PIC tinyBASIC interpreter!! I'm
sure that someone who could simply undercut Parallax Stamp BASIC and sell
less expensive chips could even make a good living off these! If they could
halve the cost of Parallax BASIC it would be hard to fault them or to
generate the interest in a PD PIC tinyBASIC, which I think WILL come,
inevitably, as it has for all other controllers!! And I believe that the
Parallax BASIC Stamp may already have been fully cracked and the code even
now is being passed around to friends! There aren't that many bytes IN it
that it would be so hard to hack by iteration!!
-Steve Walz
 
>>BillW
>
>Geez, indeed.  I have no problem paying Parallax for chips.  My idea was
>to burn the BASIC into a PIC 16C84 or some such PIC chip with additional
>capability...sort of a SuperStamp.  Now that you mention it, I should probably
>ask Parallax if they would sell other PICs with BASIC on board; maybe they
>already thought of this, and have plans (or not).
>
>BTW, kudos to Cisco for their new line of low-cost routers...it looks like
>a lot of competition for SOHO business, which can only help us poor end-
>users (and swamp the web!)
>
>Thanks,
>Don
>
>Don Heller (Donald.W.Heller@jpl.nasa.gov)
>           (heller@vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov)
>           (73632.454@compuserve.com)
>
>LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH'INTRATE
-------------------------------------------
Also a very good idea! And I have heard of plans for a "SuperStamp" this
fall or winter, and who knows, but a Public Domain BASIC for the PIC's,
even if less effective, would put the Stamp out of the running, I think!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

