Customer Reviews

Microcontroller Projects Using the Basic Stamp 2nd Edition

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The author has a good approach in revealing some of the pitfalls with using the Basic Stamp.Advanced users will certainly find some of Al's solutions very heplful, as he explains in detail floating point expressions, and working with negative numbers.
Inside the book is good code on interfacing with a serial LCD, as with others I read, Al has taken some of the mystery out of it, and really puts them to practice in his projects.If your novice to electronics, then this book is for you. Al explains how to interface keypads, switches, LEDS with no experience at all, and certainly makes it look easy.I was impressed by how he expained the circuit diagrams, and other key points on interfacing.
Al has also included his own programmer in the book, and I haven't even started to list his ideas for your next project.
I'm only giving it a four, because the CD was unreadable, and the publisher was kind of enough to send me another one.

This book is for the beginner that wants to get into electronics and has heard that the Stamp is a pretty cool thing. The book starts out with an introduction to the Stamp and Electronics in general. From this, the user is given more detail on the Basic Stamp. The majority of the book is dedicated to the projects presented in the book and this is where I learned the most about the Stamp. The projects focus on interfacing to other devices and this is where the book really shines.

Sadly, although this book is great, I do NOT suggest that you purchase it. The description of the book claims that there is a CDROM enclosed. Sadly, there isn't. The book also claims that you can "download all the files that would be on the CDROM from their FTP site". Yet another issue, because the publisher was acquired some months back, and their FTP site is GONE! Several attempts to address this issue with the publisher, the author, and Amazon have gone without resolving the issue. It's sad, because it's a great book.

The requires a lot more knowledge and materials than the BASIC Stamp Board of Education than you buy at Radio Shack. I was in electronics engineering classes and found many of the projects to be too difficult.

Sorry, the review system will not let me assign the proper rating of zero stars.

I must agree with Mr. Kvochick's previous review. Might be a good text, but it is falsely advertised and I won't be keeping it long enough to find out. None of the promised software is either included with the book nor available anywhere for download. I'll be returning the book and refraining from purchasing anymore of Mr. William's work.

Under the circumstances, this book should be sold as a $5 cut-out!

this book is for the stamps 1 & 2 biginer this book waist 152 pages
just to revie the stamp comanads that you cane find with stamp programing
manual
at the parallaxinc.com and from page 153 to 214 a simpel electronic
circuits a led relay sound ic 386 pwm out put and ltc1298 all cane
be found in stamp programing manual too from 215 to 248 thier is
a simpel ic 555 an explain of his pake1 that is a pic16f84 that do
a slave work for the stamp the pc vb frequency counter
that is conected to stamp that make the frequency count and display
it at pc i liked this project but the program did not work no mater
what i try at page 256 thier is the extending pc I/O by using the
stamp as a slave .it it is a very nice project but the vb program
is not complet may be it is a an importent pro to be given on
a 44.95$ book then from page 269 till 340 thier is the lcd keypads
darlington transistor stepper motor leds all are explained in stamp
programing manual too at page 341 to the end thier is chapter 10
that explains how to start with pic in a very brief .
in the end if you get the stamp programing manual
you will be missing nothing