About the BASIC Stamp ®
From Parallax, Inc.'s website:A BASIC Stamp is a single-board computer that runs the Parallax PBASIC language interpreter in its microcontroller. The developer's code is stored in an EEPROM, which can also be used for data storage. The PBASIC language has easy-to-use commands for basic I/O, like turning devices on or off, interfacing with sensors, etc. More advanced commands let the Stamp interface with other integrated circuits, communicate with each other, and operate in networks. The BASIC Stamp has prospered in hobby, lower-volume engineering projects and education due to ease of use and a wide support base of free application resources.
More at Parallax, Inc.'s website...
About the BASIC Stamp Tools for Linux
In October 2002, Parallax, Inc. released a closed-source shared library for PCs running Linux, "tokenizer.so". It converts PBASIC source code into the binary tokens used by the BASIC Stamp itself.In November, Ken Gracey and Andy Lindsey from Parallax, Inc., visited the Linux Users' Group of Davis to demonstrate the BASIC Stamp. (Photos)
Brian Lavender, president of the Sacramento Linux Users Group got a BASIC Stamp 2, with the hopes of getting it working under Linux. Mike Machado and Rick Greist worked with him to create the initial serial port communications tool.
In April 2003, Bill Kendrick from LUGOD got the chance to check out what Brian had done so far. By the end of the afternoon, they had got Linux talking to Brian's BS2 and running PBASIC programs!
Within days, this SourceForge project was created. (We soon learned of Brett Gordon's Ptoke project, which is very similar.)