Reginald, As long as you are in MPLAB "Editor Only" mode, as advised in the README file, the configuration bits will be set up correctly. This is a bug that's in this release of MPLAB and will be fixed in the next release. The configuration settings should be: Osc: XT WDT: TMR mode: microcontroller mode Darrel Johansen ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: firmware upgrade Author: Reginald Neale at Internet_Exchange Date: 3/5/97 10:33 PM I downloaded the MPLAB/PicStart upgrade to 1.21. The software installed OK. The Readme Release Notes detail how to install the firmware. Step one connects the programmer to the serial port and invokes the software. Step two enables the programmer and selects the 17C44 device. The rest of the steps involve loading the file, programming the replacement 17C44, disassembling the programmer and exchanging the 17C44. After following the instructions and installing the newly programmed 17C44, the programmer "power" and "active" LEDs were lit as soon as power was applied, and the computer would not communicate with the programmer. When the old 17C44 was re-installed, everything was back to normal. Back at step two, examining the default choices in the "programmer configuration" window, I see that they are "oscillator = EC", "microcontroller/microprocessor = microprocessor", and "Watch Dog Timer = x1". The instructions don't say anything about the need to change any defaults, but it seemed to me that the oscillator should be XT and the uc/up should be microcontroller. So I changed both of those, erased the part and reprogrammed it. Now the "power" LED is the only one lit (which is normal), but the computer still can't connect to the programmer. How about that WDT setting; is that OK? Can somebody tell me what the configuration settings should be? (Aside to Micrchip - change the Readme/instructions to include this info) Reg Neale