Back in the 80s, every self-respecting kid (and adults that never grew up like me) went out and bought a microcomputer so that he could play games like Donkey Kong and Frogger on his TV. The only problem was that the computers were empty. You had to program them first before you could play the games, so you had to buy the relevant magazine for your computer and copy out pages of code into it. If you made a single mistake (like full-stop instead of a comma), the program didn't work. In figuring out what was wrong you learnt how to program - normally in some form of Basic. After that, some people got interested in how it worked and went on to learn lower level languages and machine code. The end result was that it led to a whole generation of programmers. Now the UK is the world leader in game design, like the previous generation, who spent their youth building Aifix and KielKraft kits and Meccano went on to lead the world in Engineering.
Sadly, now, all the kids want to do is sit in their bedrooms and play games, so guess what we'll lead the world in in the future - Thats right, nothing useful.
Anyway, Picaxe chips and other microprocessors are not difficult to fugure out. Of course it's easier if you've done something similar before, but otherwise, you just have to work your way through the manuals, To some it seems like rocket science, but just remember: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Haku, thanks for that. Now I know where to look in the manual, so I'll give it a go. I joined the Picaxe forum, but I'm not allowed to post yet - frustrating!
