The BASIC Stamp Discovery Kit ($160), for example, comes with a software manual and the “What's a Microcontroller” book as well as a photo sensor, servo motor, piezoelectric speaker, a 7-segment ...

All microcontroller development boards — including the Arduino — owe a debt to the BASIC Stamp. It is the grandfather to the Arduino, and it is very, very old.

The BASIC interpreter eats up around 600 bytes in the Arduino RAM, leaving about 1.4 kB for BASIC code. Not much, but more than the lowest-end BASIC Stamp.

Users of the BASIC Stamp are generally satisfied with the product, but there are many who wish the device has a parallel printer port. Such a port is particularly helpful when the BASIC Stamp is used ...