I'm just getting started with PICAXE and plan to use mostly the 14 and 8 pin chips, I would like to keep things economical so was wondering whether it's possible to use the PICAXE 14M2 starter pack to also program 8 pin chips? What about the other starter kits? obviously the kits for smaller chips can't be used to program any larger chips, but how many of the kits for larger chips also support smaller chips? Thanks for any feedback.
To answer your specific question, YES, you can program an 08M2 on a board designed for the 14M2.
The "top" 4 pins for +5V, 0V, SerialIn and SerialOut are in exactly the same positions for the 8, 14 and 20 pin M2 devices (but not the 18M2).
The 08M2 will also run on the same starter board (AXE117) and make use of the pull-down resistors on some pins (C.3, C.4 and after a DISCONNECT command pin C.4) and Darlington driver channel on other pins (C.0, C.1 and C.2)
However, whether you wish to buy a 14 pin starter pack or a breadboard plus a breadboard programming adapter as suggested by PaulRB can depend upon what you wish to do.
For a lot of experiments the breadboard can be more flexible. But you will also need to separately buy the AXE027 programming download cable which comes as part of the starter packs.