BasicX...anyone here know it well?

[bluestang]

Looking for someone that knows the ins and outs of BasicX programming and software. The company (I believe NetMedia) closed up shop in 2019-ish.

We have a product that someone developed for us that uses this programming language and hardware (BX-35 chip and SitePlayer module) and he has since passed away leaving us in the dark as to what we actually have as far as source code. We have the BasicX development kits as well, but those must have to be setup a certain way to be able ti unlock/program the BX-35 chips?

We did a "last buy" from NetMedia in 2019 for the BX-35 chip and the SitePlayer modules. The BX-35 chips were supposedly programmed by them for us, but it also looks like they have locked those chips as well since we cannot re-program or talk to a unit that has those chips. If we put in older chips we have (the chips the deceased fellow programmed) that didn't come directly from NetMedia we can the re-program/talk to the units. There is a separate EEPROM on the unit too, so we're also not sure what is holding what as far as the program that was coded for us.

Like I said we are flying blind here a little as we have know experience with this other than what we learned trying to figure things out on our own.

If there are any programmers out there familiar and willing to help, please post here so I can PM and contact you for a possible side job helping us figure all this out.

Thanks!

 

[modi123]

Ooof, that's a rough one and always the 'boogieman' when dealing with single provider/proprietary small systems.

Definitely not in my wheelhouse, but you may want to snag these PDFs before they go dark. At least have some documentation to go over.

https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/e...docs/bx_docs/BX_Docs/Compiler_Users_Guide.pdf
https://phys420.phas.ubc.ca/p420_06/Ivan Gourlay/BX-35 Documentation/BX35_Hardware_Reference.pdf
https://www.robotshop.com/media/files/PDF/SitePlayer-Telnet-manual.pdf

 

[bluestang]

Yeah thanks, we have all that documentation. Doesn't really tell you much as far as what we need since we are not starting from scratch.

 

[modi123]

Fair enough. Just making sure you have it all.

From here:

https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/e...s/bx_docs/BX_Docs/BX24_Hardware_Reference.doc

After you create your program, you compile it. The compiler translates the BasicX source code into an intermediate binary language that the BasicX chip understands, and writes the data to a file (*.BXB). The compiler also takes startup preferences such as pin I/O, RAM configuration information and other important startup parameters and puts them in a preferences file (*.PRF)

I am not sure if you can pop open a BXB and PRF after compile with BasicX, but worth a shot. If you can break open those you would have (hopefully) the eprom settings and the for-sure existing code on the chips.