This September, Parallax has been in business for 35 years. As part of our celebration, we asked our customers to tell us your Parallax story. This is one we received from our community which will be shared throughout the month.
I did my best to keep my Parallax story short, however, I can’t impress how much you all taking your life path has helped mine.
I thought my first knowledge of Parallax was an article in Midnight Engineering magazine titled “Mud pump from Hell” I don’t remember the author or issue, however, I see the WayBack machine has a few issues preserved and this had to be from the late 90’s I think. The Mud pump project used a BASIC Stamp 1 to monitor pressure in a mud pump for a well drilling rig.
I had an earlier awareness of Chip’s handy work when I first played around with Commodore PET, 16 and 64. I was a “learn by opening the hatch” hobbyist. I’m sure some regressive research would find my thinking how to get hardware code opened up.
While doing my day job I spent nights looking at integrated circuit cross-references and free Intel documentation, experimenting with hardware and BASIC/Assembly on early Commodores/PC.
I got my first “What’s a Microcontroller?” kit from RadioShack and a couple of Board of Education kits, but I can’t remember when exactly though I am certain I got one in the early days they had them. This helped me easily confirm and demonstrate my understanding of concepts I had studied earlier. My first demo to co-workers was a Board of Education with infrared control and others totally changed their perspective of my skillset. While it was not advantageous to the current job title, I did experience more respect in the work I was doing at that time.
My job experience was installations of Tele/datacom, security/fire, CCTV and card access systems. It was primarily of an understanding of building structures and cabling techniques. When it came to service and troubleshooting my offsite experiences came through.
Since the start of the Parallax online store, the playground expanded, enticing me to learn more. I may have hardware on the shelves not used since I experimented with it; however, it’s function is well understood and code is always waiting for my next project.
I helped with a FIRST robotics team with the added experience from using your products, too.
When the Parallax forums started, that further built me Parallax experience. It came natural to lurk as in the days of Usenet newsgroups, learning from others the way the net was first designed to be. Anytime I had a question, the search usually had suggestions or answered with options, it is really a searchable FAQ. I never felt the need to query for expanded information. My one published project was controlling a treadmill driver with a BASIC Stamp Homework Board.
Today, the Parallax YouTube recordings keep me current. I would like to see about a channel on Rumble, though.
Just about everything I’ve done was to fill a personal need or experiment for my own experience. I’ve built D/A analyzers/loggers, PWM motor drives, personal card access, alarm system RS 232 interfaces, and more, all because you built an educational route that I could follow inexpensively.
I had just gotten started on Spin for P1 when the P2 came along. I’m glad to see some C and BASIC code examples, too. I have just gotten the P2 hardware, I’m hoping to do something before it gets to P3. The education helped me with Arduino as well (why buy from others when you have them in store?).
One of the things I’ve missed is the updated CDROM of products and all the code and the current softwares. I had 6 of those, the most recent has been transferred to a flash drive.
My appeal to you is to maybe have a flash drive available to purchase now instead of like before getting a CD with every purchase. The current online configuration is just out of wack for me or I’m just behind again on new ways to do things.
I used to say when I retire I will have more time for what I want to do, I was kidding myself. There are too many things I wanted to do. I missed out on many products you offered, like the QuadRover robot, the ELEV-8 Quadcopter, and some of the newer stuff for bigger robots. I will save to splurge on some sensors soon as I still have power wheelchair base robot plans and one of those hoverboard motors so it may come apart when the P2 code base is published using the P2 Motor Driver Add-on.
Thanks for the opportunity to tell my experience.
Robert Ash
NDBGA
Autodidact
