> > > WLoader, RomZAP, and the > > other boot loaders gives me a much simpler tool to work with because the > > intelligence is embedded into the target, which in my opinion it should > be. > > That's fine until you have a chip without a serial port two quick points on this: 1) All self reprogrammable PICs have a serial port. I think you may be talking about bootloaders in general but... 2) WLoader in specific is bit banged serial, which means that it only requires a digital I/O port. A port that is reuable by the application BTW. > or don't want a boot loader eating up program memory space. This could be a rub. I think that the Motorola chips did it the best by embedding the bootloader in an invisible program space. All in all though it's an insignificant inconvenience to me. Since I am only a hobbiest, I do development in very sporadic bursts. I don't have a space, or really even a decent box, for my PIC development stuff. Usually something will hit me and I'll go on a couple day development binge. But since the last time I've done development I've updated machines, changed disks, archived stuff, stored the boxes etc. and I spend more time recreating the development environment than I do doing development. Bootloaders simplyfy this process. 10 minutes to wire the board, 20 minutes downloading and compiling the development environment, plug and go. I've gotten more done in the last 2 days than I've done in the last 2 years. My LED dashboard display for my vehicle MP3 player is pretty much complete and only requires a protocol for delivering title, album, artist, time info from the player to the display. I'm itching to get to my house alarm, my day/night light controller, my MIDI sequencer, finishing my two embedded languages, and my robotic lawnmower. And I'm feeling with the increase in productivity due to my gpasm/gpsim linwload/wloader setup, that I will get to them. BAJ -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads