On Mon, 21 Dec 1998 11:21:06 -0600, you wrote:

> I just finished reading the 16C87x databook. Very nice part. The one thing
>that makes it stand out is that program memory can be written under program
>control. On top of that a small portion of program memory can be write
>protected. Sounds like a good place to stick a resident bootloader program
>to me.
>
> It would seem that Microchip designed the chip with this in mind. The next
>question is whether they are going to release a piece of bootloader code. If
>so their web site makes no mention of it. If not I could see writing one
>myself. Is anyone else working on this? If so, several of us could work on
>this to make a universal loader that could be used by all. I think that the
>loader itself is an almost trivial piece of code. The trick is making it
>flexible enough to be useful to almost everyone and as well as novice
>friendly.
>
> Ideally the code should not require any special software or hardware on the
>host side so that any terminal program that can talk X,Y,Z or modem would
>suffice. HyperTerminal may be a shitty COM package, but at least you know
>everyone has it. 
Strongly disagree - this would inevitably increase the loader size,
and therefore waste valuable code space in the PIC.