Forgive the following but I half been in a 6 hour frenzied OS and SW meeting
(argument/fight ;-) at work.

> "Only" for Win9x and NT, (probably W2K too), but some people have it
running on Win 9x on old 486 machines, as it is very efficient in code and
execution, so you could use your ould junk machine as a "no-cost" server
running machine?
>
Shame win9x and NT are not efficient in code and execution

> NT is of course more stable than Win 9x, and should be used for site
servers etc I know, but is too expensive for me.
Chocolate cakes are easier to nail to the wall than Jelly (Jello)

> Viking is capable of working good on both Win9x and NTx!
Wow all two operating systems.

Coming back around to PICs etc.... but not fully... I am sure I saw
somewhere a schematic for IDE drive (ATA) connector to compact flash,
trouble is I can't remember where.  Can someone let me know please.

Also I came up with an idea for a very simple pic bus (I don't think I am
the first) using the snap on IDC 20 pin Socket connectors and 1/20" ribbon
and bringing out each connection from the PIC onto a 20 pin plug.

For one offs they are 0.47 UKP for IDC sockets or Transistion Headers and
0.40 UKP for 2x10 pin header at my local electronics outlet www.cpc.co.uk or
online catalogue https://catalogue.cpc.co.uk/cpc/guest_frames.asp.  So all
you need is a bit of ribbon cable and some very simple boards or even
directly solder bits to make clock modules, interfaces etc....    I'd prefer
this method to breadboard as I seem to loss where I am going after while.  I
see this as a good way to be able to reuse expensive parts quickly among
many projects and quite a keen way to develop.

Regards and a Happy New year

Allan