Donald L Burdette wrote:

> One thing nobody has suggested is to connect your crystal to a CD4060
> or 74HC4060 chip, which is a crystal oscillator plus multi-stage
> divider.

  I thought of that as the simplest test rig.  In fact I wanted one just
before New Year's Eve (was hoping to get a decorative thing going for
then but - didn't finish it until a day later) to figure out which
terminals on a SMD crystal encapsulation were the business end (little
elongated SMD package with bevel at one end.  The two terminals at that
end were in fact the "live" ones).  In the event I just used the AVR
(oops!) prototype to test it!

  For go/ no go testing, cascade two 4060s and put some LEDs on the last
few stages - every second one.  I meant to say too, use HC4060, the
plain variety only goes to 2 MHz or so - far too low for most crystals.

  Perhaps a special one using a "plain" 4060 and the series resistor,
for 32 and 40 kHz crystals.  I haven't heard too many replies to my
observation that PC manufacturers learned *very* early in the piece to
use a 4069 in a *series* oscillator circuit for these special crystals
(even the latest MBs do this), so I tend to view getting them to work
with the shunt oscillator on the PIC as pushing .... uphill.
--
  Cheers,
        Paul B.