Picaxe Assembler

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oracacle

Senior Member
Picaxe uses a bootstrap firmware for the code interpreter. If it is programmed without the use of the picaxe software the firmware will be erassed and it will no longer be a picaxe and just a standard PIC. Unless something has changed recently.
I do not know if there are assembly compilers for picaxe.
 
A

AllyCat

Senior Member
Hi,

It can probably be arranged to work on the larger PICaxes, but bear in mind that it is not a "Real" or native PIC Assembler. Normally, Assembler is used for greater speed, but AFAIK the WJEC Assembler mnemonics are simply converted to the PICaxe Basic Interpreter Tokens, so the code will probably run (much) slower than a well-constructed PICaxe Basic Program. :(

Cheers, Alan.
 
S

stan74

Senior Member
Great cow basic shows assembler for pic/avr from basic code and lets it be modified, It is a compiler not an interpreter.
 
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tmfkam

Senior Member
Great Cow Basic has a very similar syntax to PicAxe. It also has a 'Graphical' programming method which appears similar to Blockly - I've not used either but it looks like a flowchart type programming method.

Yes GCB can use Assembler directly. It is the full fat assembler too, and both BASIC code and Assembler runs at native speed, unlike both the PicAxe code and (as I understand) assembler.

I don't think that it is any more or less difficult to use as PicAxe, though I would concede that the documentation isn't always as well written, but it must be said that GCB is a community project not a commercial one. The GCB forum is mostly as helpful as the PicAxe one so any questions are usually answered quickly.

The one area that I would say PicAxe wins hands down over GCB is the availability of the simulator. The PicAxe simulator is fabulous, right there, integrated within the IDE, along with some handy simulated peripherals such as the LCD. It is wonderful.
 
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julianE

Senior Member
tmfkam said:
I don't think that it is any more or less difficult to use as PicAxe, though I would concede that the documentation isn't always as well written, but it must be said that GCB is a community project not a commercial one. The GCB forum is mostly as helpful as the PicAxe one so any questions are usually answered quickly.
Click to expand...
I went so far as to buy a basic assembler, used it for a week and found so many issues that i gave up on it. GCB is okay, it's main flaw is the ambitiousness of it, too many parts supported, of course, i used one that's supported but had problems with the dat file. it's resolved so i will use it for those chips until i run out. I also tried the microchip environment and it's not as bad as people make it, i haven't done any fancy things with it but it blinks light and so on. I think the strength of picaxe is limiting the choice of chips to one each of every pin count plus the older versions, very well thought out. Documentation of picaxe is far superior to competition commercial or otherwise. The one constant complaint is the speed, a solution might be some sort of a true assembler that converts picaxe basic code to a hex file that can be loaded to a like pic chip, like a 20 pin, PIC16F1829.
It could be all done on a web page, upload a basic file and download a hex one. i would not mind if there was a nominal charge for the service.
It's probably far more complicated to implement than I'm imagining.
 
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bpowell

Senior Member
julianE said:
I also tried the microchip environment and it's not as bad as people make it, i haven't done any fancy things with it but it blinks light and so on.
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MPLAB isn't bad, but if you're in MPLAB, then you're working at the bare-metal layer; and that's MUCH more complicated than PICAXE ... PICAXE abstracts all that bare-metal stuff away ... want to change the speed? "setfreq = m32" ... that's MUCH easier than finding the config bits, turning on or off the PLL, configuring the OSCCON registers, etc. But I don't have a beef w/ MPLAB or the XC8 compiler ... they both work great ... consume a fair bit of RAM, but that's a Java issue I believe.

julianE said:
The one constant complaint is the speed, a solution might be some sort of a true assembler that converts picaxe basic code to a hex file that can be loaded to a like pic chip, like a 20 pin, PIC16F1829.
It could be all done on a web page, upload a basic file and download a hex one. i would not mind if there was a nominal charge for the service.
It's probably far more complicated to implement than I'm imagining.
Click to expand...
Yes, this is my frustration w/ PICAXE as well ... but we have to remember: The target market here is education, not hobbyists ... so speed is a non-issue ... and having an online service convert a program to HEX ... I can't imagine there's an educational use-case for that.

I love PICAXE, but I do use it less and less ... I work primarily in MPLAB now in C ... and the occasional Arduino project in C++.
 
S

So Cal Technologies

New Member
Hi

Have not gotten alerts for all these responses.

We are grinding our way through Microchip assembler.

Picked up PICAXE to see their assembler examples.

Happy Holidays!

Bob

11 AM Saturday California
 
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