From Wilson Tam <wilson.tam@UTORONTO.CA>, the following:
> Hi there.  I am a student who just began using Microchip PIC
> microcontrollers.  I've purchased a pic programmer kit from ITU
> Technologies.
>
> After soldering the components to the PCB, and connected it to my PC, I
> tried burning a hex file into a PIC16F84.  However, I encountered some
> programming problems.  Specifically, the programming software read my file
> and asked me to "insert the PIC chip and press any key to start
> programming".  I did that, and the LED on the programmer did blink, but
> immediately it gave me a message:  "ERROR in programming!".

I'm currently using an ITU programmer (the pre-assembled version) with
no serious problems.  At first I used the ZIF socket, but I built an ISP
cable and added a few components to the breadboard so don't have to keep
pulling and re-inserting my 16F84 (;-).

However, I have seen the error message you refer to (among others).

The first thing I'd suggest checking is your circuit.  I've been burned
a few times by solder joints that looked good - but weren't.

The next thing I'd look into would be timing.  The parallel port
programming is timing-sensitive, and if you're not running in a "true"
DOS environment, you can have problems with other system activity.  In
my case, MPASM and PICPRG8X.EXE run in a DOS VDM under OS/2; works fine
most of the time, but heavy disk activity (e.g.  starting Netscape/2
(;-)) can trigger a programming failure.  Not serious in my case - I
just re-run PICPRG8X.

But... if you're running (say) MSWin95, you might try restarting in "DOS
without Win95" mode and see if you get different results.

Hope this helps...


Frank McKenney            / OS/2 Advisor (OS2BBS)
McKenney Associates       / Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Internet: rrs0059@ibm.net / TalkLink: WZ01123