Darren Logan wrote:

>why is it impossible to breadboard ?
>isnt there dip equivalents of the surface mount components ? - there must be
>surely ! - or at least near equivalents.
It's not impossible to breadboard, but definitely impractical. Many of
the components don't have DIP equivalents (Flash memory, 3V logic, etc.)
so I'd have to do an awful lot of "surfboarding" or something similar to
breadboard the beast. Since the PIC is the ONLY component that needs to
be DIP, and only for a relatively short time during code development,  it
seems impractical to spend days working up a breadboard "equivalent" when
I can spend $150 or so and get a DIP to QFP adapter...

But I think perhaps Paul's suggestion of using a Flash part during
development is the way to go, as long as there *is* a pin-equivalent
flash part. In my case, there is: the target is a 16C774, and a 16F874 is
(almost perfectly) pin equivalent. The only thing I can't test on the
flash part is the 12 bit A/D, but the code can be written and tested
ahead of time, so it becomes an electonics problem by the time I have to
use the OTP parts. (I think). And if need be, I ca buy the espensive but
oh-so-useful adapter.

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions!

Dave Johnson