> My opinion is to stick to MPLAB under Windows. OK Olin, then meet his requirements. Discuss how to get a working Windows installation and MPLAB on a sigle 1.44MB floppy. For extra credit show how it can be done for no monetary cost. Weren't older versions of MPLAB just DOS programs? (until quite recently, even?) How about freeDOS and and older MPLAB, or are the older MPLABs hopeless when it comes to modern chips? Considering the amount of DOS that fit on old, uncompressed, floppies, you can probably fit an impressively usable system on a 1.4M floppy with "uncompress to ramdisk" technology. (In fact, I seem to recall doing that for my very first floppy-only laptop. I wonder where THAT is these days...) BillW -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.