No, everything is initilized to zero, I'm pretty sure. External EEPROM devices is how most deal with this requirement. Small 8 pin device can hold 32KB of data, 2 pin I2C interface.It just occurred to me: technically, I could add the data entry segment to the front end of the main program (assuming I had the memory, which I'm sure I won't) and use a persistent variable to only enable it to run the first time the program is booted after download....does the Picaxe have persistent variables?