Microchip has recently released a new PIC micro, the PIC12F683, with twice as much memory as the original PIC12F629 used within the PICAXE-08. This has allowed Revolution Education to develop the PICAXE-08M, an enhanced PICAXE-08 with in-built music playing capabilities – and much more.

Fig.1: the pinout diagram for the new PICAXE-08M microcontroller.

The PICAXE-08M supports all of the standard commands and features of the PICAXE-08, with the following enhancements:

• Program memory has been doubled in capacity (approx. 80 lines of code).
• Musical tune playing capability, user generated or four pre-programmed tunes (play and tune commands).
• 10-bit ADC option on 3 pins (read-adc10/readadc commands).
• Interrupt feature on inputs (setint command).
• Infrared remote control input and output (infrain2/infraout commands).
• Continuously driven PWM motor drive output (pwmout command).
• Control of radio control type servos (servo command).
• Count high frequency pulses within a set time period (count command).
• Accurate digital temperature sensor interface (readtemp/readtemp12 commands).
• Read serial number from any Dallas 1-wire device (eg, iButton) (readowsn command).
• Software support for increased (8MHz) clock frequency (setfreq command).

Note that all existing PICAXE-08 programs will run on the 08M without modification.