We made this chart to compare and contrast the features of three comporable microcontroller solutions. We do not endorse or discard any specific line of products. We have worked with all three of these solutions and each one has its benefits.
Hardware and software specifications were sourced from manufacturer websites when possible.
 BS2 Module by Parallax |
 Arduino Nano by Gravitech |
 EzSBC1 by EZSBC |
Physical Properties |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form Factor | DIP-24 | DIP-34 | DIP-40 |
| On-board 5V Regulator | Yes | Yes | >No |
| USB Port | No | Yes | Yes |
| Cost | $39.99 | $9.95 | $39.95 | Programming |
| Language | Interpreted PBASIC | Compiled ANSI C | Interpreted Control BASIC |
| Floating-Point Math Support | No | 32-bit | 64-bit |
| Programming Interface | Proprietory Software | Open-Source AVR Compiler | None - Direct Terminal Interface | CPU & Memory |
| Processor | PIC16F57-I/SS | ATMega328 | LPC2136 |
| Clock Speed | 20 Mhz. | 16 Mhz. | 60 Mhz. |
| Program RAM | 2k | 30k | 64k + 60k |
| User RAM | 32 bytes | 2k | 30k |
| User EEPROM | - | 1024 bytes | - |
| Instructions Per Second | ~4000 | ? | ~20,000 | I/O And Peripherals |
| Digital I/O Lines | 16 + 2 | 14 | 34 |
| Hardware PWM Pins | - | 8 x 8-bit | 4 |
| Hardware ADC Lines | - | 8 x 10-bit | 16 x 10-bit |
| Hardware DAC Lines | - | - | 1 x 10-bit |
| Hardware Timers | - | 2 x 8-bit + 1 x 16-bit | ? |
| Hardware Interrupts | - | 2 | ? |