Thomas Rowley wrote:
>I'm having some problems with my PICSTART 16B. It seems to have a hard
>time setting the fuses correctly. Works about one time in 5. I thought I
>remembered a thread about this some while ago. I dowloaded the latest
>MPS16B but it says I have "incompatible firmware" although my programmer
>says it is V1.4. Does anyone have a suggestion?
>
V 1.4 is very old.  It had a lot of trouble programming the fuses properly,
especially if a slow PC was used to control the PICSTART.  I believe V 1.7
is the latest, although I use 1.6.  When I initially bought my PICStart, it
had v1.4, I left a message on the Microchip BBS and got on a list for
upgrades 1.5 and 1.6 free when they came out.  V 1.5 fixed the fuse problem,
although I don't think it supported the 16C84.   Also each version of
firmware needs a new version of software to drive it, I don't remember the
correspondence in the numbers but I do know they will not work properly with
each other.  The one you downloaded is probably for 1.7, so you need to
obtain a V 1.7 firmware chip from Microchip and install it on your PICStart.

-Mike