|Frank, you can get universal zif sockets, anything from about 16 dip
|upwards.  The 8 pin dip will fit into anything below a 24 pin? (I think)
|anyway (universal or otherwise). The picstart has a universal 40 dip - what
|I'm saying is, you get them smaller, maybe not down to 8, but you can use a
|universal zif for the 8 dip. Does that make sense? mmm. Too little sleep
|over the last few days.

Of course, fitting a 28-pin ZIF into an 8-pin on-board socket is a
little tricky...

...but not impossible.  On the older Aries units, it's possible to
convert the bottom of the sockets from 0.6" row spacing to 0.3" by
disassembling the socket and swapping the left/right pins.  The new-
er sockets seem to use a rivet instead of a screw to hold the unit
together, though. :-(

[As for the length problem, just stack a bunch of 8-pin machine-pin
sockets to get the needed height clearance off the board. :-)