Paul Greenwood wrote:

>I don't suppose that the '61 is programmable with my PIC-START system I use
>for the '5X family???

My understanding is that the PIC-START 16C is needed to program the '61.
(Microchip will correct me if I'm wrong) At the embedded systems conference
the sales engineer for Microchip said that microchips strategy was to have
several "picstart" programmers, each capable of programming a "few" kinds.
This would allow them to sell you a picstart for the type of products you
were designing into your prototype, but would mitigate impact on PICMaster
sales. (since for the cost of two or three PICstart kits you are almost
into the cost of the PICmaster anyway.) I alluded to him how I thought this
was an exceptionally short sighted strategy but I don't expect corporate
types to understand the notion of "cheap tools expands the user base
which lifts volumes and revenues" theory.

On the otherhand there is Parallax which announced that their programmer
will program 16C64s with their 40 pin adapter and I suspect they will
make it able to program '61s. So whereas there used to be a slight
advantage to the PICStart 16B, (with its free samples and nicer software)
That advantage is being lost since it now costs twice as much to program
the same devices that the Parallax programmer will program.

--Chuck