ANY-maze Help > I/O devices supported by ANY-maze > The ANY-maze interface device family > Installing and configuring ANY-maze interface devices > Programming an ANY-maze interface device

Programming an ANY-maze interface device

It's usually unnecessary to reprogram an ANY-maze interface device manually. Therefore we don't recommend you do this unless explicitly instructed to by ANY-maze Support.

Introduction

All ANY-maze interface devices contain a microprocessor which runs some software know as firmware. We will occasionally update this firmware to include new features or to fix problems; when we do this, ANY-maze will recognise that the firmware has changed and automatically reprogram your ANY-maze interface devices. Nevertheless, there are circumstances when it may be necessary to reprogram an ANY-maze interface device manually, and that is what this window is for.

To reprogram the ANY-maze interface device, simply click the Update firmware button on the device's Configuration page.

Figure 1. Usually ANY-maze will reprogram ANY-maze interface devices automatically. But if you need to reprogram an ANY-maze interface device manually, you can do so using the Program ANY-maze interface device window.

Details

ANY-maze interface device firmware

Inside each ANY-maze interface device is a microprocessor which runs some software, just like a computer. This software (which is called firmware) is saved in special memory inside the device and can't be lost (hence the 'firm' rather than 'soft' part of the name).

Of course, like any software, this firmware can be changed to add new features or to fix problems. Updating the firmware in ANY-maze interface devices is a process called 'reprogramming', and this is something that the ANY-maze software can do. In fact, not only can it do this, but it will do so automatically if it detects that the firmware is out-of-date. This typically happens when you update your ANY-maze software, as together with the ANY-maze update we may have included an ANY-maze interface device firmware update too. If this is the case, then when you first run the updated version of ANY-maze with any ANY-maze interface devices plugged in, ANY-maze will recognise any firmware that is out-of-date and will automatically prompt you to reprogram the necessary devices.

Reprogramming an ANY-maze interface device

To reprogram an ANY-maze interface device, you simply need to click the Update firmware... button on the device's Configuration window. This will cause the Program ANY-maze interface device window to open, where you should click the Program button to actually cause the reprogramming to be performed. Reprogramming is quick and takes just a few seconds to perform.

If your computer is switched off or 'crashes' while reprogramming an ANY-maze interface device, don't worry - when you restart ANY-maze, it will recognise that the reprogramming was not completed successfully and will automatically program the device again.

Sometimes we will make improvements to an ANY-maze interface device to add new functionality, which may result in a newer model of the hardware. This will require ANY-maze to download new firmware to make use of any new features. Under rare circumstances, this may result in newer versions of firmware being imcompatible with older hardware. When this happens, you will not be able to update your firmware beyond what is already in the hardware - if you try and reprogram the firmware for your devices, you will be told about this to prevent programming a device with incompatible firmware.

ANY-maze help topic T1046