>Get a Picstart+ first of all from Maplins they are around #160 inc vat. It
>will save you a lot of time and effort programming the Pics and is
supported
>directly from MPLAB.

Hmm, I would have said to get an ICD2 so that you can do some debugging
along with programming. On the basis that you are looking at starting with
PICs, then use the 18F252/452 series, which have the on chip debugging, and
the ICD2 is the correct tool for this. later if you need to, then you can
also use it for the 16F87x series AFAIK, but for a beginner you will
probably find the 18Fx52 easier to understand.

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