Parallax

Parallax Inc. was founded in 1986 by Chip Gracey and Lance Walley, originally operating from an apartment before growing into a privately held electronics manufacturer headquartered at 599 Menlo Drive, Rocklin, California. The company employs approximately 35 people in research and development, sales, manufacturing, education, marketing, and technical support, and maintains over 70 global distributors.

Parallax is best known for its BASIC Stamp microcontroller line, introduced in 1992. The BASIC Stamp—named for its postage-stamp size and programmed in PBASIC—became popular among electronics hobbyists, educators, and industrial engineers for its ease of interfacing with external electronic components through powerful I/O commands. The BASIC Stamp 2, launched in the mid-1990s, became the foundational product for the company's Stamps In Class educational curriculum (launched 1997), which introduced students and educators to microcontroller programming.

In 2006, after eight years of development, Parallax released the Propeller microcontroller—a multicore system featuring eight 32-bit processors (called cogs) controlled by a shared bus controller (the Hub). This allowed true simultaneous real-time multiprocessing, distinguishing the Propeller from single-core alternatives and making it suitable for robotics applications requiring concurrent sensor reading, motor control, and communication.

Parallax's robotics product line includes the Boe-Bot (a wheeled robot kit using the BASIC Stamp 2), the ActivityBot 360 (a more advanced educational robot with encoder-based wheels), the cyber:bot (a micro:bit-compatible robot), the Shield-Bot (an Arduino-compatible platform), and the Scribbler S3. These kits are used in K-12 classrooms, university engineering programs, and by hobbyist and professional communities worldwide. The company also sells a wide range of sensors, including ultrasonic rangefinders (PING))), GPS modules, accelerometers, and RF communication modules.

All Parallax products are designed and manufactured in the United States, with the company emphasizing long-term product support and curriculum longevity as key differentiators for educational customers.