ESP8266 Community Forum

Hello kolban and Mike. Maybe what I'm wondering about fits this thread because this is not a hijacking attempt
Here is the scenario: You buy a brand new ESP-8266 version 1. Now when you buy it you can connect it to a serial monitor like Putty for instance right? And if you can connect to the module at that point it will respond to those AT commands. Now do you need to load firmware (nodemcu?) onto the module before you can upload a sketch using Arduino IDE or can you load a sketch using Arduino IDE while the module is still responding to AT commands? Does this question even make sense? I'll keep a sharp eye on here if I need to elaborate further so it will make sense. And I repeat if I made a mistake putting this question onto this existing thread I'm really sorry but I did search and this looked like this was kind of what was already being discussed. On a sidenote I signed up with the official Arduino.cc forums and those guys are the most hateful bunch I have ever seen.
So this is Dave over n' out for now. And nice meeting you guys.

no, the "arduino sketch" relies on the same lowlevel kernel (some minimalistic OS) as the "AT-firmware" and gets flashed the same way.
From the "bootloader" you can either flash AT firmware or Arduino-sketch; they both will bring their prefered version of lowlevel kernel.

One can see it like having a PC where you can install Windows OR linux. You install (flash) both the same way by booting the install medium from bios.
Ok, there even is an analogy to a bootmanager from PC: an esp8266 bootloader where one could theoretically have AT-firmware and arduino-sketch in flash and select what gets started at boot time. But this is way too complex for making sense on such device.

The reason I ask that question is because I have a brand new ESP-8266 v 1 and it works great when I hook it up to the Arduino IDE and use the serial monitor to send it my AT commands But I cannot upload a sketch to the module with the Arduino IDE. So that is why I was wondering if I needed to burn something like a bootloader to the ESP-8266.

Thank you for all of responses. I am currently in 1.6.5 Arduino IDE. When I am trying to upload my code to NodeMCU, this error message pop out as follow:
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
error: failed reading byte
warning: espcomm_send_command: cant receive slip payload data
warning: espcomm_sync failed
error: espcomm_open failed

What is the problem?