I just completed the basic construction of my Start Here robot and thought I would share something that drove me nuts. I searched and searched on this forum and couldn't find the answer to my problem. I found a solution burried on the Picaxe forum.
I was having the strangest problem. I could write out a simple little code and have the computer send it to the robot but when I tried to do more complex programs it would tell me that the hardware cannot be found.
This was a joke as clearly it could find the hardware just seconds ago with a simpler program. It seemed like a very poorly worded error message. I should point out this was using MacAxePad on an intel based Mac.
What I determined was that it seemed like "if then" statements were breaking the program and making MacAxePad unable to load it onto the chip.
I found a PICAXE forum post from 2009 that outlined a similar problem with gosub routines on AxePad for Macs.
http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-11785.html
Tech support suggested adding the following line at the bottom of the program.
interrupt:return
I tried it and VOILA! Suddenly the program loads onto the chip just fine. One other person noted in the forum that this bugs seems to have returned in the latest version of AxePad. Tech support said they are looking into it back in November but there was no response after that.
If you are a Mac user banging your head agaisnt a wall, give the interrupt:return a try.