>>         - 12c508 is "one shot one kill" and i burned out 2 micros

You mean "burnt out", or just used up?  It IS a one-time programmable
device, but I don't usually equate "correctly executing a program that
doesn't work" with "burned out."  (Could be a language issue.)

On that topic, does anyone care to describe techniques they use to get more
than one try out of an OTP device?  Seems like both all-zeros and all-ones
are reasonable harmless instructions to have happen before you start trying
to do real work so you ought to be able to put your program as high as
possible in program memory (so it occupies the top 100 words or so.)  Then
when the PIC resets it starts at 0, executes (memsize-100) NOP or ADDLW 0xFF
instructions, and then starts your program proper.  If it doesn't work, you
program your next 100 word program starting at memsize-200 and try again.

(obviously, this doesn't work as well if you start needing interrupt vectors
and so on, but hopefully by the time your program gets that complex you've
got more experience and more flash alternatives.  It's the really "trivial"
first time attempts and such that I want to address.)

There may be difficulties with programmers and verifies and such, which is
why I'm asking for actual experiences...

Thanks
Bill W

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