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Chapter 13 — Giving Roomba a New Brain and Senses                    263



                             Many people, however, opt for getting one of the several Basic Stamp carrier boards that Parallax
                             makes. One of the best (and cheapest) is the Board of Education, shown in Figure 13-4. It has
                             jacks for power and RS-232 and has a small solderless breadboard for quickly creating projects.
                             Alongside the breadboard, all the pins of the BS2 are brought out as headers for easy connect-
                             ing. The Board of Education and BS2 are so popular that Parallax sells a kit containing both
                             along with a serial cable and power adapter, which is exactly the one listed in the “Parts and
                             Tools” section in this chapter.

                             In addition to the great products Parallax has created, they also have some of the best docu-
                             mentation about microcontrollers in general and Stamps in particular. The documentation covers
                             everything from what a microcontroller is to a multitude of interfacing techniques for sensing
                             and controlling the environment. All are available as free PDF downloads. Visit http://
                             parallax.com, click Downloads, and look at the Documentation and Tutorials.





































                             FIGURE 13-4: Basic Stamp Board of Education development board, with BS2 inserted
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