Dear PIC'ers.

I plan a RS232-powered Production Quality Programmer with folowing
capabilities:

   1. Meeting all Microchip Specification. The power is keeped low
enough (<1mA?) by resetting the PICxxxx, and then step fast until
desired address is reach, do programmings, and reset again when power is
needed. The Power is held on an electrolytic capacitor. The PIC's only
use very low power when reset is active.

   2. The Programmer may be slow due to the low power consummation, but
the normal speed is as for a standard Production Programmer. This is
obtained by
       a) Verification of the capable power on the capacitor, and only
reset the microchip and insert delays if needed.
       b) Using that the typical current on RS232 may be higher and the
power used by the PICxxx typical are much lower than maximum current.

   3) The Programmer should use an PIC16Cxx to control voltages, and to
verify if programming voltages are meet. The voltages for the production
programmer is generated by the microcontroler by controling the average
on an output pin. The Interrupts may not occur exactly, and may be
adjustet by reading the PIC's counter. Both Vcc and Vdd is controled by
the microchip, and both values is adjusted by software. No external
adjustment is needed and the adjustments are burned into flash / eeprom.

   4) The Programmer should work with standard RS232 communication, and
the microchip controles it. The high values on Vdd is generated by
charge-pump, and verified by the chip. The charge-pump generages 13V
from +/-5V only, and it should work with all RS232 chips.

   5) The Programmer should program all the microchips and is not
restricted to the serial programmable only.

   6) The currents are verified to guarentee that the PICxxx is inserted
right in the socket, and to avoid problems if the chip is shorted
internaly. The check may be done when MCLR is low if it need to
guarentee low verification current.

   7)  The Programmer does not depend on clock's from the PC, and it is
able to work with all platforms if software exist, and if needed. (The
Programmer was intended to work with a standard terminal program).

I like to know if such a programmer is made, or if other is planing to
do it before I start to develope the programmer.

Rgds,
Jens Dyekjfr Madsen