Will peripheries such as motor controllers, servo controllers, bluetooth serial terminals, etc. made by for instance parallax work with commands coming from other microcontrollers or even a PC without the use of basic stamp or do they have embedded basic stamp functions? Can a PC communicate directly with a motor controller or servo controller? I think I am going to start with an AVR microcontroller with either assembly or C language, but I do like the parallax products and education kits. Thank-you for any help.
You’d want to look at the communication voltage level and logic type for the device you want to use. Many modules I see speak TTL, which is usually a 5volt or 3.3volt signal, but your computer serial port talks rs232, at 12volts or thereabouts, and has different ideas about a 1 or a 0. You’ll need what they call a level shifter to turn down that rs232 into TTL, and viceversa. Lots of manufacturers make these converter chips, but you may find it easier to buy a ready-to-go unit, Pololu makes a couple converters, pololu.com/products/elec.html
Under computer interface.