I am a newbie both to the PIC and the PICLIST.  The Microchip discounted price
offer on the Picstart Plus seems fairly attractive to me, but ...

Judging by the info on their Web page it seems it can't program the 16F84 (It
appears to me that the F version will supersede the C version in due course?)

It works on Windows 3.1.  I  paid Mr Gates a lot of money to upgrade my home PC
from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 and sure would not like to go back again.  Will
the Picstart work under Win95?