I have been using Picaxe microprocessors in my robotic designs for about a year now, and I love it. However, one of the constant criticisms I find listed on the net about Picaxes is the limited lines of code they can store (600 lines for X series devices). Considering this line count does not include white spaces and blank lines, to me that seems like a lot of code space. I was wanting to know how many robotics hobbyists out there use more than 600 lines of code in their robot designs? Like I said, 600 lines seems like a lot of code lines for one person to write.
As a hobbyist myself, projects sometimes grow, an extra sensor here, more functionality there, as opposed to a more professional project with a fixed brief. Multiply that by what used to take me 600 lines I can probably do in 150 now with a couple of sub routines and a flag here and there.
How many lines? Currently I building and processing my robots maps with a dedicated LPC2104 and GNU GCC, in hind sight I should have used the LPC2106 as change in sensor now means that I could have increased the maps resolution and the code space is already at 34k. Don't get me wrong there a lot of optimisation that can be done but it's a fluid design stage not production optimisation. 600 lines for a line follower is great but how about a maze mouse or mapping a house?
I also think that although they may be saying code space what they may also be including in that statement is resources (storage and code), speed and the flexibility a native as apposed to PCODE may give. Don't get me wrong I wish the PicAxe range had been for me years ago as Intel Basic 85 on a wire wrap board was a learning curve and a half for me! They really are as cheap as chips compared to a Basic Stamp, but adding more code storage may not be the solution. Looking at the BasicX-24p for example with 8000+ lines of code user will hit a speed and flexibility issues long before storage space.
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