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The colour Maximite supports 8 colours in 480x432 VGA mode, plus a higher speed 240x213 mode for games. Extra commands to use colour include the use of sprites and the ability to display BMP images. The Colour Maximite can be purchased from Altronics, and CircuitGizmos in the USA also supply a Colour Maximite board with a few more features, including a prototyping area.

Micromite

Based on the PIC32MX150/250 range of microprocessors, the Micromite is truly a computer on a chip. It runs a version of MMBasic that lacks the graphics commands of the Maximites, but adds a heap of new commands for communicating with devices like temperature sensors, LCD displays, servo's, RTC's, etc.

The Micromite still supports its own built in program editor, and you "talk" to the chip with a serial terminal, like a VT100 terminal, or any PC running a terminal program such as Tera-Term. So unlike a PicAxe chip, the Micromite will let you edit the program it has in memory.

The Micromite has 128k flash and 32k of RAM. 20k is reserved for the program, and 22k for variables. MMBasic supports floating point and strings.

Forum member BigMik has developed a prototyping board for the Micromite called the MuP. The MuP has a on board voltage regulator, and numerous pin-outs for the Micromite chip. The MuP makes it easy to prototype a circuit around the Micromite, you can contact Mick at Bigmick58@bigpond.com.

Dontronics have a USB to Serial adapter that supports the 3.3v TTL levels the Micromite uses.

Looking for a program editor? TassyJim from the forums has developed a program editor for the Maximite/Micromite range of computers, called MMEdit. Even those these computers have their own built in program editor, MMEdit has a bunch of features to make developing software for the Maximite easier.