> A real serial port. It is my strong belief that if you used a
> USB-RS232 bridge the programming times will increase a little
> due to the overhead involved.

This is what I like in the KIT149. It was designed for USB operation,
works flawlessly with it, and it very fast. It is not that important to
me how the USB communication is implemented (virtual serial port vs
'real' USB) as long as it is fast and reliable.


> >A coworker of mine has a real serial port in his computer and has
> >almost no problem running any programmer (though some of them are
> >slow).
>
> You mean the picstart plus. ;-)

Yes, PICSTART but also Warp13. In the cases where I manage to program
with the WARP13 using a USB/Serial adapter, it was much slower than the
KIT149 (up to 2-3 minutes for a 16F876A). As for the PICSTART, I read in
the MPLAB support forum that PICSTART does not support 'virtual serial
ports'.


> >On my
> >computer I don't have a serial port and have had very bad experience
> >with several USB/Serial adapter and serial programmer.
>
>
> These things simply cannot reproduce the same timings as a
> real RS232 port. They will always be hit and miss.

The KIT149 works just great using its on-board USB/Serial, probably
because the FTDI driver is more stable than average USB/Serial (it is
Microsoft certified) and because the programmer softwae was writtern and
tested to work with the USB/Serial.

> However, the DIY programmers do do some really silly things
> like blank checking a flash part with no option to turn this off...

The option I have has an 'Ignore Blank Check' option if this is what you
are looking for. As for the rest of your 'wish list', just send it to
Tony and he will take care of that ;-)

I hope that one day all programmers will have only USB connector (no
serial or power) and the software will come as a single installer file
that install all the necessary drivers.

Regards,

Tal


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