I can't imagine Microchip's product development being constrained to
creating only new parts still programmable by the Plus.  No money in it.

If I was calling the shots at Mchip, I'd confine the programming support
products to the lowest common denominator, DOS programs running on XTs
with 256k ram and a floppy disk drive, programming adaptors on the printer
port and still compatible with W95.  That way they'd get the widest
possible customer base while minimizing their support expenses.  I doubt
the profits on sales of Picstart Pluses, 16Bs, 16Cs or Lites pays the
costs of the programming support department.

Leave the bells and whistles program development systems (and risks) to
other specialty companies.

Another thing I'd do is look at gearing up for masked part production
ability.  There's no upward migration path at Mchip when my quantities are
getting obscene.  If I can save $1.50 per part at 20000 pcs/yr and mask
tooling charges are only $3000-$4000, I can easily justify the
redesign/program costs to use another brand's masked chip.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the Mchip parts, they're great!  But other
companies with good products have gone belly up.  Don't want to see it
happen to Mchip.

_____________________________________________
Lynn Richardson           | lrich@qni.com    \
Progress Instrument, Inc. | wa0znl.ampr.org  |
807 NW Commerce Drive     |  [44.46.176.3]   |
Lee's Summit, MO 64086    |                  |
(816)524-4442 F:246-4556  |                  /
---------------------------------------------

On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, Mike wrote:

> >I was serious.  I bought the Picstart Plus last summer because Microchip
> >said it would program ALL their pic chip products.  A few months later I
> >find I need to replace/change the firmware in the adaptor to program the
> >new 12C5xx parts.  I think it is fair to extrapolate that when Microchip
> >comes out with new PIC parts, further changes will be needed to the
> >firmware.  Or maybe there'll never be any new PIC parts? Hmmm... hadn't
> >though of that.
>
> Might be that with the 12C5XX being the first of a whole new series of
> serial programmable a basic firmware change was need to handle this. If
> more PIC parts follow the existing programming protocols then I doubt
> there will be a need to a firmware change.
>
> Some-one did say there was an older version of the P+ perhaps now
> you'll be ok (Until they come up with a CPU in a TO-92 pack).
>