> I recently ordered PICProto-18, PICProto-Dual, and PICProto-64
> from Micro Engineering. I was disappointed that the board layout
> of all three does not lend itself to installing ZIF sockets. I'm
> currently using Aries 28 and 40 pin sockets and AMP (Textool) 18 pin.

I guess I'm totally confused. Why would you wish to permanently mount a ZIF
 socket
to a Picproto board? I can see that during development you will be inserting and
 removing
the PIC a lot but I've found the way to do this easily is to get a ZIF socket,
 solder it into a
machine tooled "extender" socket. These look like wirewrap sockets but have
 round pins.
They are used to mount LED displays and such near the front surface of a
 project. Anyway
then solder a machine tooled socket in the pic protro. No plug the ZIF extender
 in during
development (it is "over" the regulator etc) and pop it out and plug the PIC in
 directly when
your done. You need only make one extended ZIF since you reuse it on all your
 projects.
--Chuck