This changed in the early 90s with the introduction of the BASIC Stamp from Parallax. This was a simple microcontroller development board using Microchip PIC. With a little bit of clever firmware ...
The Basic Stamp 1. A Simple circuit with just a microcontroller, an EEPROM, crystal, and brownout circuit. The Basic Stamp kit on my workbench was made in 1993, and sold for a suggested retail ...