Actually, at the time the original BASIC Stamp was released (early 90s), programming a microcontroller directly from your serial port was a huge improvement. Most microcontrollers back then required a separate, expensive programming board, in addition to non-free programming software. You also had to remove most microcontrollers from your circuit to program them.

I agree that by today's standards, programming via serial port is cumbersome, but it's actually a good thing that the STAMPs are still available because they are used in a _ton_ of embedded applications that are still in use and need maintenance and replacement parts.

I'm well aware of what we came from.

My dad had a few of these. One I distinctly remember was a 2 part combo. To write, you put the chip in a ZIF socket (he changed this from a socketed to ZIF) in a huge metal box, and what looks like a parallel port to the computer. Then, you realize that wasnt a parallel socket, but something going to an 8bit ISA card.

To erase, you had to untape the window and put the chip in a UV box for a few hours.

I've still got it around here, somewhere...

Thats an old school EPROM setup; never used one myself but heard they were a right pain to use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPROM

Newly-minted video game prototype collectors over the past decade have found themselves wondering why one-of-a-kind games in their collection kept coming up unreadable although they were perfectly usable when they first purchased the cartridge. In most cases, it's because they found themselves fiddling with the EPROM window and/or carelessly storing the cartridge until bit rot ran its course.

There was plenty of benefit to EPROMs back in the day to a developer, but long-term data retention was certainly not one of them.

This reminds me a lot of programming EPROMs for the BBC Micro back in the 80s. Several people (including me) brought one of their ROM sockets out to a ZIF socket on the side of the keyboard.