doubt (Retrieving program from PICAXE)

llamaxt

New Member
Hello everyone.
I have a 28 pin project board with a program running to perform a task. Now I need to modify this program.
Could somebody please tell me if it is possible to download this program from the pic to the computer to modify it.
Since the program I do not have it on my computer (hard disc failed and all the information was lost)
Thank you.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
As others have said; not possible - There is no mechanism to retrieve a program from within a PICAXE.

We recommend regularly taking backups of program code and keeping copies on USB memory sticks, CD-ROM, DVD, other computers, networked storage devices, or even in 'the cloud'. That also applies to documents and application programs self created or downloaded from the internet. It is also important to check that backups are complete, retrievable and can be used. The more backups there are the better things will be.

If one can find small but cheap USB memory sticks, mini-CD or mini-DVD, or those shaped like credit cards, they are often convenient to keep with the PICAXE project itself. Using multi-session settings will allow them to be kept updated and that's always useful if one comes back to a project and cannot remember what the program is or where it would be.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
On the plus side; loss of a program is not always as bad as it may first seem.

Though it has gone and there is little choice but to recreate the program from the ground up, the experience of having already done it, and knowledge gained, should make that a little easier the second time around. A new version may be a lot quicker to develop than the first was.

Some projects can even benefit from a rewrite, the first version considered a working proof of concept, the second being the way it would have been done if the experience of achieving that had been had in advance.

It may feel like a bad loss, but it may also be an opportunity.
 

AllyCat

Senior Member
Hi,

The inability to read back the "program" is not an oversight, but a purposeful mechanism to prevent the software being "stolen" by others.

But even if you could read back the code, it would be of very little use. There would be no comments (which of course you always include) ;) , no Symbol declarations, and the Program Editor changes the structure of the program very considerably and into "tokens".

If you still have a working program/hardware then it shouldn't be too difficult to "reverse engineer" much of its behaviour. But as a warning to everybody, do make sure that you back up your programs in more than one place. And one of those places could be the "Finished Projects" or "Code Snippets" section of the forum. ;)

Cheers, Alan.
 

Jeremy Harris

Senior Member
Hi,
But as a warning to everybody, do make sure that you back up your programs in more than one place. And one of those places could be the "Finished Projects" or "Code Snippets" section of the forum. ;)

Cheers, Alan.
Exceptionally sound advice!

I usually develop code using a version system, which involves having a lot of old copies of earlier code saved. My system is to maintain three directories, one called "archived project XXX code", one called "loaded project XXX code" and one called "development project XXX code". Normally all of these directories are backed up to a USB hard disk every night at 7pm.

However, I have sometimes made copies of code, loaded it on a USB stick and then used that to programme a Picaxe in the field, using a laptop. Sadly, I did this a while ago and needed to make a lot of code changes to get it to work, which I did on the laptop. I saved it back to the USB stick which then promptly died when I plugged it back in to my desktop. All attempts at recovering the USB stick data failed, as the thing was clearly burned out - it was getting extremely hot.

As a consequence, I now have a bit of working code in a unit that I don't have a copy of, so if anything goes wrong with it I shall have to start from scratch and try to recode things based on how I know it behaves.

The morals of this story are that you can never have too many backups, and never trust a USB stick.....................
 
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