Hi,
I was just given an Arduino mega 1280 and I have never worked with arduino boards before hand. I could not find the getting started page for the mega 1280 and so I tried to follow the directions for the others (nano and such). When I tried uploading I got the following errors:
core.a(main.cpp.o): In function main': C:\Users\THESPA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\Rar$EX15.368\arduino-0022\hardware\arduino\cores\arduino/main.cpp:7: undefined reference to setup'
C:\Users\THESPA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\Rar$EX15.368\arduino-0022\hardware\arduino\cores\arduino/main.cpp:10: undefined reference to `loop'
There are two functions that must be present in every sketch - setup and loop.
I think you're lacking both of them.
Take a look at http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Sketch
You could also try playing with some of the examples and modify them as you like to get familiar with the concepts rather than starting from scratch.
Also, without posting the actual code you are trying to compile, it can be difficult to troubleshoot. When posting code, please wrap it with code tags (by pressing the "#" button in the post editor.)