Picaxe

Hi, I'm not sure if many people use PICAXEs, but to me they seem very convenient. Does anyone find them particularly useful, or not?

BTW If you do use them, do you know whether or not you can differentiate between frequencies fed in through an IR phototransistor?

A few here started with the PICAXE and have since moved to compiled Basic like PBP or C.

Determining the frequency is more or less the same in any language. There are many places on the web that talk about how it is done. Keep in mind the freq is inverse of the period (time between pulses).
https://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?5732-frequency-counter-need-help

Thanks for the reply, I don't really understand much in terms of PICAXE. It seems I have to learn the language. Is BASIC the simplest language for PICAXE? How long would you say it takes to learn BASIC? Would you say C is related to BASIC? And which of the two is easier?

And also, do you think it would be a simple program to write? (Just counting the pulses over a period of time to determine the frequency, and going high at certain pin if it is within a certain bandwidth)

I do realise that there are a ton of questions here, but I'm totally new to this.

Ever thanking you, TheAppleMac.

TheAppleMac said:

Thanks for the reply, I don't really understand much in terms of PICAXE. It seems I have to learn the language. Is BASIC the simplest language for PICAXE?

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BASIC is the ONLY language for a PICAXE, aPICAXE is a preprogrammed PIC with a BASIC interpreter inside.

How long would you say it takes to learn BASIC? Would you say C is related to BASIC? And which of the two is easier?

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BASIC is FAR, FAR easier than C - they aren't at all related (although the passage of time has meant various features have been copied from one to the other).

PICAXE BASIC is particularly easy, as it's commonly used in schools.

Read this about PICAXE
https://www.picaxe.com/What-Is-PICAXE

A PICAXE only runs BASIC
the c language is not BASIC

If you do not know how to play a piano all the music is difficult.
If you do not know how to program any program will be difficult.

So unless you want to commit to the time it takes to learn to program the you will not be able to program micro controllers. It takes weeks and even months to get to the point of doing useful programs.

Nigel and 3v0 - both replies were very informative and helpful. Thanks so much!

I guess I'm going to have to learn BASIC the hard way. It looks as though BASIC is one of those things which is easy to learn, but extremely difficult to master. Thanks again for the answers.

Learn BASIC 1st and you will pick up C along the way.

Will do, thanks for the advice.