Ok, here is the cheapest way i found to get started in Stamping. Buy the Stamp II and a carrier board from Parallax. Pick up a serial cable at your local Radio Shack. Get the serial cable that has a female connector on one end and a male on the other. Parallax offers the PBasic programming language software for free down loadable off there web site along with the 300 page version 1.9 manual. Or you can get the manual and Pbasic Editor on my Downloads section of my page. I got my starter kit together for under 70$. You also need a breadboard to do you experiments on. If you want to save a little money you can skip buying the carrier board and make one with your breadboard. All you need is beardboard and a female serial D-subminature Right Angle PC mount Connector available at a Radio Shack. Now put your carrier board together, here is a schematic diagram to help you do so. Peter Anderson also offers a starter package for 79$. It includes all the parts need to start stamping. It doesnt come with the packaged version of the stamp, it called the Homebrewed Stamp. It takes a little more room, but if far better because if you fry something you just pull it out of breadboard or socket and replace it. You dont have to send it into Parallax to get it replace. Click to see my Homebrewed Stamp II. To find out more about Peter Anderson's started kit click here. There you have it, a Basic stamp starter kit for half the price. If you would like to find out more about the Basic Stamp go over to Parallax's website.

Ok, the first thing I suggest you do is read the manual. There is pretty much everything you need to know in there so read it over carefully. I am not saying you have to read the whole thing before you can start doing anything with the stamp that would just be boring. But read enough so you know what you are doing to some extent. I found the easy way to start making things with the Stamp was to do the experiment 1 made by paallax's stamps in class. To download it click here, or if you would like to check out Stamps in class website click here. Now connect you stamp to the Com port run the editor and your ready to prgram the Stamp. Just follow the instruction on the tutorial and you will have you first Stamp LED Flasher. There are also 5 more tutorials made by Parallax too. They can also be downloaded off my website just go to the Downloads section. If you have any problems or questions email me. There is also a Basic Stamp mailing list. There is many people willing to answer all your questions and problems that you are having.

When your first starting out in Stamping you realize you need something to make that great project your working on even better. Thats where accessories come in to play. There are probally hundreds to chose from, so i will help you narrow it down to what i think are some of the better accessories to make those projects even better.

LCD Displays - I would have to say my number one pick is a LCD display. If you get tried of having to leave your stamp connected to your PC to use the debug screen to display things then you diffently need and LCD display. If your working on any project that needs to be user friendly then LCD is what you need. There are a number of different sized LCD displays 1x16,2x16,4x20,and 4x40 to name a few. The first number is the number of rows on the LCD and the second number is the number of characters it can fit in one row. Chose a size that best fits your buget or requirement. Scott Edward's Electronics is a great vindor of serial LCD displays great for those stamp projectrs. Scott Edwards is a well known contributor to the stamp community, I brought both my LCD's from him, I would recommend him to anyone. His website is www.seetron.com

Analog to Digital Converter(ADC) - ADC do excalty what there name says, convert a analog voltage to a digital value. Many of todays sensors output a analog voltage, so in order to read them with a stamp you need a ADC. There are many different manufactures and options when chosing what ADC to buy. The most commonly used ADC with Stamps are serial ADC's, because they only require 3 I/O's pins. Another consideration when buying an ADC is its resolution, 8 bit, 12 bit, 16 bit, and 18 bit are some of types available. The most commonly used type today is the 12 bit. This means they create a 12 bit repersation of the analog value, so the higher the bit value the higher accuracy you are going to get. I have a few tutorials for connecting ADC's to a Stamp on my projects section of my page.

Real Time clock (RTC) - Since the Stamp only uses a resonator for its clock, it is not accuarate enough to keep track of dates and times. Resontors usually have a +/- 1% error, that means over a 24 hour period error could be close to an hour. But since the Stamp usually only is working with milli seconds, mirco seconds,and seconds a resonator does the job. Real Time Clock can keep track of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. So as you can see any project that requires an accuarate time base then a RTC is what you need. Dallas semi conductor make some of the most popular RTC's. www.dalsemi.com