Page 281 - Hacking Roomba

262 Part III — More Complex Interfacing

About the Basic Stamp 2

There have been a few variations of the Basic Stamp module as Parallax improved and expanded
their product line. The most common is the Basic Stamp 2, also known as BS2, shown in
Figure 13-3. The module is a small PC-board containing a specially programmed Microchip
PIC microcontroller and a few support components. It is in the form of a wide DIP chip, so it’s
immediately familiar in shape to anyone who’s built circuits before, and it plugs easily into a
socket or solderless breadboard. It provides 16 input/output pins that can be used to read but-
tons or knobs, power LEDs or motors. The PBASIC version of the BASIC language it uses
contains special keywords to help with these common tasks.

FIGURE 13-3: Basic Stamp 2 module

The BS2 can run directly off a 9V battery and a few of its pins can connect directly to a PC
RS-232 serial port to serve as a means of both programming it with BASIC code and watching
debugging output. Grab a solderless breadboard, some wire, a few other common parts and you
can whip up a Basic Stamp programming board in a few minutes.