Bear

Depends what use you want to do with it.. I no longer use it Now on (HT)C and 16F PICs.

For: Loader is cheap ( AXE027??), good dedicated forum, Very good documentation, Easy to learn.

Against: Cripplingly slow for some applications due to the built-in interpreter.

Dave

Cripplingly slow is over dramatising things a bit! Yes it is slow compared to its native PIC but nobody would use a Picaxe if they need a fast chip, nor would they programme in Basic.

The two of the best things about using a picaxe is the forum and the documentation. The regulars on the forum (including Rev Eds own staff) are really helpful and whilst they wont actually write the code for your application (because they want you to learn how to do it yourself) the examples and snippets they post can be really focussed and they have always solved my problems.

Something similar but a bit more powerful than the Picaxe is the Kronos range.

Bear

I have no connection with Revolution Education (No axe to grind either!) but for the sort of things you have mentioned I don't know of anything more appropriate than Picaxe (or 'Stamp' chips.

There is a range of (really low cost) development boards, various 'shields', and all you need to programme it is a serial cable. The documentation includes really simple examples of how to connect switches, LEDs, potentiometers etc, from which you can then progress to real life sensors and LCD text displays (which only uses one pin of the chip).

From what you have said about yourself and what you want to do, going to machine code or using a chip that need a programmer would be a steep learning step.

My 2p

Ian P

PS, The bulk of projects that Picaxe's are used for, are for controlling things, I have not seen a Venetian blind controller but I have seen one for curtains. 

Edited By Ian Phillips on 06/12/2013 20:21:02

Searched googlie for -controller by bbc basic- and got this guy

Using BBC BASIC for Windows
with Velleman's K8055N/K8061 USB Interface Boards

video here

So there's stuff out there, if you look for it

Hi Bear,
I have built two controllers that may be of interest to you. The first one controls a roller blind It uses a small geared motor which drives the end of the blind. There is a reflective optical sensor that senses 4 reflective markers on the end of the blind.It works by incrementing a counter when it is going up and decrementing the counter when it is going down. When it is first installed it is put in set up mode. In this mode. There buttons to raise and lower the blind and two to store the counter setting in the up and down positions. The blind is moved to the up position and the store up button is pressed. The same is done for the down position. The switch is then set from the set up position to the normal position. The unit is powered from a plug in timer which is set to switch the unit on for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening. It remembers which way it last moved so if it is down it moves up and vice versa. If there was a power cut during either of the two minute power on periods is would get out of step.
The other controls a pair of curtains. It does not use limit switches but senses the motor current. when the curtain reaches the end of its travel the motor is stalled causing it to draw more current than a preset value. This causes the power to the motor to be switched off. It also has a timer which only allows the motor to run for about a minute in case the over current detection fails. (Or the drive cord to the curtains breaks.) It is controlled by a plug in timer in the same way as the roller blind. Let me know if you would like details of the designs. They both us a PIC16F84 microcontroller.
There are also the Arduino boards (Which use Atmel chips and are programmed in "C" ) And the Texas MPS430 Launchpad kits which are quite cheap.(Less than £10.00) that may be of interest to you.

Les.