BASIC Stamp vs. PIC/Picaxe

In engineering, there is often a large debate over which is better: The BASIC Stamp family or the PIC/Picaxe family. All over the Internet, there are heated debates over which is superior. at a site called "Let's Make Robots.com" the BASIC Stamp two module was under fire, and after reading some of their arguments I almost considered giving up on the BASIC Stamps. Until I read a response from a user called "robologist". I think he made the best argument for the BS Family:

"You can rag on stamps all day, but you aren't buying hardware with them. You are buying the software, the manuals, the carefully worked out way each pin can do what other pins do generally (16 pins of serial ?!?), a huge user base, and some folks that are generally helpful in getting a project done. There is no better, simpler solution for a beginner that has never programmed, never soldered, and wants to build and program their first micro, except possibly Lego Mindstorms (which has even fewer I/O).

I know PICs have the PICList, many programmers, development boards, and a good company in Microchip backing them, but can you seriously compare the scattered resources and possibly helpful / possibly conflicting information on PICs with something clearly put together like the Basic Stamp manual? Do you really think a beginner will know that setting particular register is necessary to allow certain functions to happen on a PIC, or whether that same beginner can use a Stamp and just read the pin or switch it with a simple instruction? Stamps aren't made for intermediate or even advanced users, they are for beginners and they've set themselves in that spot very well.

If comparing micros, I believe that AVRs are actually optimized for C programming (where for PICs it's a hack), operate at one instruction per clock cycle (compared to the PICs requirement for 4 cycles per instruction) and use a much better type of flash with greater cycle life. If going even further, there are the many ARM7 and now ARM9 processors, 32 bit to move out of that slow 8 bit world. How about a DSP or programming your own core into an FPGA? You see, it's easy to look back and whinge about how horrible a previous developmental step was, or you can see that it had it's place, that it was useful for what it was."

Of course, all of the PICs are much cheaper, so if cost is a stresser then stick with them, but I choose to stay with the BASIC Stamps for now, as I will be able to learn them better.

These first two images are from a BASIC Stamp kit I got. It was extremely well done, starting with simple projects, and then making them more and more advanced. The best way to start programing hardware.






These images show the axe023 module, which is an 8 pin that I got for $15 including the board. I brought two of them, one came defected and the other was a pain in the rear-end as it's voltage regulations wouldn't tolerate 9v. Its Datasheet (user Manuel) was very poorly done leaving me confused and hopeless.









For the record the faulty Picaxe was not due to voltage, I was actually having more problems with the board than the chip. And yes, there is a difference between PIC and PICAXE, however I chose not to focus too much on that when I wrote this. Apparently many people feel very strongly about the topic of microcontrollers, however I based this post primarily off of my own experiences with multiple different microcontrollers, and so obviously the user experience may vary.