>I too had a similar problem that was board related.  I thought I had fried
>the chip but found out that I had a wire that had come off.  Big relief but
>took lots of time to find.
>
>Norm
>

You want big relief?  I accidentally plugged an 84 in backwards, into the
programmer!  So not only were the poor little pic's power lines were
reversed, but RB7 had Vpp applied to it.  Hmm, the programmer (PIP-02) said
programming failed, so I tried it again.  And again.  Then I found that it
was in backwards so I pulled it out to turn it around and it was a wee bit
warm.

It wouldn't program anymore.  (I figured that the RB7 pin circuitry might
be blown.)  It didn't work for the next few days so I used one of my other
84s.  But about a week later, I thought I'd try it once more before I threw
it out, and it worked just fine!  I guess it just needed a little R&R :)

--
* Eddie Maste -- aa529@freenet.durham.org