I find myself wanting to do this a lot, we have many Arduinos and lots of computers in our shop; is there an easy way to see the sketch on an Arduino (recent, UNO) and transfer back to PC somehow?
gravelbar:
I find myself wanting to do this a lot, we have many Arduinos and lots of computers in our shop; is there an easy way to see the sketch on an Arduino (recent, UNO) and transfer back to PC somehow?
Basically no. What you would be able to read back is the binary AVR machine code that the compiler created from your sketch and then uploaded to the chip. You can't 'un-upload' it to get a readable sketch in the form that it was written in.
Lefty
You can 'un-upload' it to get a readable sketch in the form that it was written in.
sp. "can't"
AWOL:
You can 'un-upload' it to get a readable sketch in the form that it was written in.
sp. "can't"
yep, some errors my goggle spell checker isn't smart enough. 
What's wrong with a clip board of paper, two columns, left column: arduino serial number, right column: program? How are these arduinos being used?
Of course, duh, thanks for kind answer to dumb question. I'm part of the Arduino crowd who loves it but uses it strictly as a tool; don't have time to understand everything, thanks for your patience 