As a PICaxe virgin, I thought I had nothing more to do than buy a couple of picaxe chips and lash up a cable to one of my own USB to serial adaptors and get cracking - wrong ! Fortunately, twenty-odd years of getting Macs to interface with alien worlds has stood me in good stead 
I DID read all I could in this forum about this problem to circumvent any issues beforehand
The initial pain of trying to find the device name in /dev was unusual - then having to manually edit the axepad.ini file to mirror it ! This is the 21st century - we've had popup menus since dirt - why isn't the interface selector a popup in the prefs? Shades of 19th century Redhat Linux LOL
After much checking with 'scopes on data lines etc showed that MacAxepad was not sending any data out of Txd on the program cycle - it WAS however communicating using it's own terminal 'though ! (that is it was communicating with itself when Txd and Rxd were shorted).
The adaptors I use are generic USB to Serial adaptors from CPC/Farnell in the UK - part No CS14522 - this is manufacturers part No PSG02504 and are most likely "Prolific" devices (there's probably a lot of them about too ;-). I've used these on the Mac for years with absolutely no issues (until now They look IDENTICAL to the USB10 item that Techsupplies sell - I also tried the PL-2303 driver for OSX 10.5 intel - that didn't work either.
I've used the Keyspan USB to Serial adaptor USA-28X since dirt - it uses the old classic Mac mini DIN 8 connectors - so I cobbled together a picaxe cable using this and it worked first time !
FWIW, the devices are called ...
tty.USA28X41P1.1 or tty.USA28X41P1.2 (it has two ports). You'll have to re-edit that pesky axepad.ini file of course
I don't know why both adaptors work perfectly well as serial interfaces (even at VERY high baudrates on three wires) but one doesn't work with AxePad ????
Being a cheapskate, I didn't buy the USB to jack plug AXE027 of course I've also just noticed that it's cheaper than the CPC item dammit )
As a very happy ending, the extremely complicated algorithm code ;-) I wrote for the 08M chip worked FIRST time and replaced a 30 GBP Programmable Xtal Oscillator chip - 28.50 GBP saving at least
What can I say, over the last 15 years or so I've used various processors on the Mac - PIC/Atmel/Stamp/Propeller etc etc most at best have been an horrendous experience (especially using SPIN on the propeller PICaxe and it's retro basic is just superb. MacAxePad is a nice simple interface (or it will be once it gets more "macified" - and none of those awful emulators that I've used in the past - that NEVER work - I build in blocks with testing at each stage - much easier - a bit like using "beep" for debugging software
Well done the folks at PICaxe !
I DID read all I could in this forum about this problem to circumvent any issues beforehand The initial pain of trying to find the device name in /dev was unusual - then having to manually edit the axepad.ini file to mirror it ! This is the 21st century - we've had popup menus since dirt - why isn't the interface selector a popup in the prefs? Shades of 19th century Redhat Linux LOL
After much checking with 'scopes on data lines etc showed that MacAxepad was not sending any data out of Txd on the program cycle - it WAS however communicating using it's own terminal 'though ! (that is it was communicating with itself when Txd and Rxd were shorted).
The adaptors I use are generic USB to Serial adaptors from CPC/Farnell in the UK - part No CS14522 - this is manufacturers part No PSG02504 and are most likely "Prolific" devices (there's probably a lot of them about too ;-). I've used these on the Mac for years with absolutely no issues (until now
They look IDENTICAL to the USB10 item that Techsupplies sell - I also tried the PL-2303 driver for OSX 10.5 intel - that didn't work either.I've used the Keyspan USB to Serial adaptor USA-28X since dirt - it uses the old classic Mac mini DIN 8 connectors - so I cobbled together a picaxe cable using this and it worked first time !
FWIW, the devices are called ...
tty.USA28X41P1.1 or tty.USA28X41P1.2 (it has two ports). You'll have to re-edit that pesky axepad.ini file of course
I don't know why both adaptors work perfectly well as serial interfaces (even at VERY high baudrates on three wires) but one doesn't work with AxePad ????
Being a cheapskate, I didn't buy the USB to jack plug AXE027 of course
I've also just noticed that it's cheaper than the CPC item dammit )As a very happy ending, the extremely complicated algorithm code ;-) I wrote for the 08M chip worked FIRST time and replaced a 30 GBP Programmable Xtal Oscillator chip - 28.50 GBP saving at least
What can I say, over the last 15 years or so I've used various processors on the Mac - PIC/Atmel/Stamp/Propeller etc etc most at best have been an horrendous experience (especially using SPIN on the propeller
PICaxe and it's retro basic is just superb. MacAxePad is a nice simple interface (or it will be once it gets more "macified" - and none of those awful emulators that I've used in the past - that NEVER work - I build in blocks with testing at each stage - much easier - a bit like using "beep" for debugging software Well done the folks at PICaxe !
