PICAXE Firmware

[Fowkc]

Here's a silly question:

How do I know before I buy a particular PICAXE which firmware version is loaded? I'm thinking in terms of knowing whether a part will support 16 or 256 GOSUBs. I tend to buy my PICAXE's from Rapid Electronics, cause I buy enough to get free delivery most of the time. Maybe someone from technical could enlighten me?

 

[hippy]

Not a silly question at all IMHO.

Unless the seller advertises a particular version, states a particular functionality, or you can specify it with an order, you can't send it back as the wrong part. For high-turnover retailers one could assume that it will be near latest firmware, but that's not guaranteed.

Not having the chips labelled means that a retailer can't tell by simply looking at what they have, and may even have mixed version stock, and asking which version it is will likely be met with "Don't know", but it might be worthwhile phoning their sales support anyway.

Also the firmware.txt file doesn't have dates of each version release so it's not easy to tell when old versions should have been last delivered and likely to have worked their way out of circulation.

 

[ylp88]

Do you suppose that some (or all) of the authorised PICAXE distibutors (eg. Microzed, in Australia) can return old firmware stock to Rev. Ed. for them to update the firmware. Perhsp such arrangement exists, especially for those retailers who deal in high turnover and/or have very large stocks.

<b><i>ylp88 </b> </i>

 

[Technical]

Its extremely unlikely that any distributor would have the old 16 gosub firmware still in stock, it was updated a long time ago.

 

[Sebastiaan]

You can also check using the programming software,

Sebastiaan

 

[ylp88]

Certainly, Sebastiaan. However, it is not always easy to return an &quot;old&quot; firmware chip to obatin an updated one and distributors are unlikely to go and check all their chips so that they/you know which firmware version they have in stock.

<b><i>ylp88 </b> </i>