Parallax Inc. is a

privately held company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

Rocklin, California Rocklin is a city in Placer County, California, about from Sacramento, and about northeast of Roseville in the Sacramento metropolitan area. Besides Roseville, it shares borders with Granite Bay, Loomis and Lincoln. As of the 2010 census, Ro ...

. Parallax Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells

BASIC Stamp The BASIC Stamp is a microcontroller with a small, specialized BASIC interpreter (PBASIC) built into ROM. It is made by Parallax, Inc. and has been popular with electronics hobbyists since the early 1990s. Technical specifications Although the ...

microcontroller A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable i ...

s, Propeller microcontrollers, microcontroller accessories (such as LCDs, sensors, RF modules, etc.), educational robot kits, and educational curriculum. Parallax is headquartered in Rocklin. The Rocklin office employs thirty-five people in research and development, sales, manufacturing, education, marketing, and technical support. Parallax Inc. has over seventy distributors around the world, including Jameco Electronics.

History

Originally established in 1987, in Rocklin, California, Parallax Inc. manufactured products such as the ISEPIC, TopRAM, and the first third-party Microchip PIC Programmer. In 1992, the BASIC Stamp 1 microcontroller module was released. In 1995, the BASIC Stamp 2 module was added to the product lineup. By 2002, there were over three million BASIC Stamp microcontrollers in use around the world. In 1997, the Stamps in Class program was created to provide educational resources that addressed the needs of electronic students ages 14 and up. The Boe-Bot is one of the company’s most popular products in the educational program. In 1998, Parallax Inc. formed a partnership with

Ubicom Ubicom was a company which developed communications and media processor (CMP) and software platforms for real-time interactive applications and multimedia content delivery in the digital home. The company provided optimized system-level solution ...

(formerly Scenix Semiconductor) to develop tools and BASIC Stamps using their new SX microcontrollers. Company founder Chip Gracey designed the SX-Key Programming Tool to make programming Ubicom’s SX chips affordable. And in 2005, Parallax Inc. and Ubicom formed an agreement in which Parallax Inc. was made the exclusive supplier of the SX microcontroller. In 2006, after eight years of development time, Parallax launched their

Parallax Propeller The Parallax P8X32A Propeller is a multi-core processor parallel computer architecture microcontroller chip with eight 32-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) central processing unit (CPU) cores. Introduced in 2006, it is designed and sold ...

microcontroller. The Propeller 2 multicore processor is under development and does not have a release date yet. The Propeller 2 processor includes features commonly requested by customers such as code protection, additional RAM and more

input/output In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals ...

pins.

Popular chips and robots

The Propeller chip

The Propeller is a

multicore A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such ...

system that can do real-time simultaneous

multiprocessing Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. There ar ...

. It uses eight 32-bit cores called ''cogs'' controlled by a bus controller called the ''Hub''. It can be programmed in assembly, C, or in the interpreted

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

programming language. It comes with a software library of objects for a various sets of

devices, such as

UART A universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (UART ) is a computer hardware device for asynchronous serial communication in which the data format and transmission speeds are configurable. It sends data bits one by one, from the least significan ...

s and a

video display controller A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing ...

emulated fully in software. The Propeller is also supported by third-party compiler developers who have developed platforms in C and BASIC. The

is also recognized as being easy to program.

The BASIC Stamp and BASIC Stamp 2

Released in 1995, the

was so named because it was about the size of a postage stamp. Programmed in

PBASIC PBASIC is a microcontroller-based version of BASIC created by Parallax, Inc. in 1992. PBASIC was created to bring ease of use to the microcontroller and embedded processor world. It is used for writing code for the BASIC Stamp microcontrollers ...

, the BASIC Stamp found an audience in electronic hobbyists with powerful I/O commands that made it easy to connect to other electronic components.

The Boe-Bot

The

Boe-Bot BOE–Bot is short for Board of Education robot. It is the trade name of a robot kit that is used in junior high, high school and college robotics classes. It consists of a main circuit board (the Board of Education) and breadboard, a plug–in BA ...

is a programmable wheeled robot with a BASIC Stamp 2 brain that is used by educators and hobbyists. After being introduced in 1998, it is one of Parallax's top selling robots.

Sensors

Parallax manufactures sensors to measure distance, color, humidity, temperature, pressure, RPMs, heat, and altitude. These sensors are either surface-mounted components on a printed circuit board or in packages that are readily acceptable for breadboard-style mounting. Each sensor is supported with educational curriculum and documentation.

Education

Stamps in Class

Launched in 1997, Stamps In Class curriculum was designed to introduce students and educators to BASIC Stamp microcontrollers using software basics, circuit building, and simple hardware. One tutorial in the Stamps in Class series is the

, a simple yet versatile rolling robot that has a BASIC Stamp brain.

Propeller education labs

The Propeller education program was developed to teach how to operate the

Propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

chip. The

features eight 32-bit processors. The Propeller education program demonstrates how to program the microcontroller for use in process control, measurement and signal generation and robotics. The program is designed for engineering students who have product design requirements in their curriculum.

Featured in magazines

Filling a niche in the technology market by offering robotics for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and students, Parallax has been featured in magazines including:

Make Magazine ''Make'' (stylized as ''Make:'' or ''MAKE:'') is an American magazine published by Make: Community LLC which focuses on Do It Yourself (DIY) and/or Do It With Others (DIWO) projects involving computers, electronics, metalworking, robotics, woodwork ...

, SERVO Magazine,

Robot Magazine ''Robot Magazine'' was an American bi-monthly robotics publication produced by the Maplegate Media Group. History and profile ''Robot Magazine'' was conceived, designed, originally staffed and run for several years by then editor-in-chief, Tom Atw ...

, and

Nuts and Volts ''Nuts and Volts'' is a bimonthly American magazine for the hands-on hobbyist, design engineer, technician, and experimenter. It has been published by T&L Publications since 1980 and leans heavily toward microcontroller and digital electronics pr ...

Unofficial Propeller Expo

History

The original UPE, the Unofficial Propeller Expo North East (UPENE) was hosted by a long time Parallax Forum member, "Oldbitcollector." He labeled it "Unofficial" so hobbyists could meet and exchange projects, ideas, and advice about Parallax robotics without getting permission to host an "Official Propeller Expo." However, Parallax came on board and now many Parallax employees can be found at each expo, talking with hobbyists, students, and inventors.

Unofficial Propeller Expo North East (UPENE)

The UPENE was an annual event located in

Norwalk, Ohio Norwalk is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Huron County, Ohio, Huron County. The population was 17,012 at the United States Census 2010, 2010 census. The city is the center of the Norwalk, OH μSA, Norwalk Micropolitan Stat ...

, at the Norwalk Community Center. The expo consists of educators, engineers, hobbyists and students setting up tables and sharing their experiments, demonstrations, and products based on or inspired by microcontrollers such as the Parallax

. The UPENE was the first of the three existing UPE's. As Parallax unofficially sponsors the expo, the company was joined by a second sponsor: the company Gadget Gangster.

Unofficial Propeller Expo Chicago (UPEC)

The UPEC, also known as the "Chicagoland Propeller Expo," was a one-day event held at the 807 Building in

Ottawa, Illinois Ottawa is a city located at the confluence of the navigable Illinois River and Fox River in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States. The Illinois River is a conduit for river barges and connects Lake Michigan at Chicago, to the Mississippi Riv ...

Unofficial Propeller Expo West (UPEW)

The UPEW, was the only one of the three UPE's to be located at Parallax's offices in

. This UPE also offers a special educator's course hosted by Parallax's engineer and author Andy Lindsay.

The Parallax forum

Before 2004, the Parallax product user support forum was hosted in Yahoo! Discussion Groups. In 2004, this discussion group was moved from Yahoo! to Parallax Forums, located through Parallax's website. Members frequently discuss projects, programming, and products designed around the BASIC Stamp and Propeller Chip. Also, students can use the forums as a place to ask questions and receive direction to solve homework and projects.

Products sold

Microcontrollers

Robots

*ActivityBot 360 Robot Kit *Robot Shield with Arduino *SumoBot * Scribbler 2 *ELEV-8 Quadcopter

Other products

* PING))) Ultrasonic Distance Sensor * RFID Reader Module * Spinneret

web server A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...

board

Discontinued robots and products

*Scribbler *Penguin Robot - small two-legged walking robot *HexCrawler -Parallax had teamed up with Crust Crawler Robotics to create the HexCrawler. *Toddler - two-legged walking robot *

Parallax SX Parallax SX is a discontinued line of microcontrollers that was marketed by Parallax, from a design by Ubicom. Designed to be architecturally similar to the PIC microcontrollers used in the original versions of the BASIC Stamp, SX microcontroll ...

* Digital In/Out Board * BASIC Stamp OEM Kits * Propeller Demo Board * Javelin Stamp * Spin Stamp *

HYDRA Game Development Kit The HYDRA Game Development Kit launched in September 2006, and was developed by André LaMothe who designed the prior XGameStation series of consoles. Like the XGameStation, HYDRA is an open system, allowing anyone to create games for it. However ...

Upcoming products

*Propeller 2

References

External links

*
UK Official DistributorParallax ForumsParallax Events Photos
{{Authority control Companies based in Placer County, California Electronics companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in California Privately held companies based in California