I'm using a PICKit board connected via the header to a solderless breadboard. I right now have only RC2, power, and ground connected. RC2 goes to an input of a 7404 inverter, the output of which is connected via a 100-ohm resistor to a LED. Things were working fine for about an hour of testing when at some point the PIC died. I tried programming it with a known-working program, still broken. I replaced it with an identical PIC and programmed that with the same program and it worked. What worries me is I have no idea what I did to break the first one. I had assumed that it's safe to have a PIC pin drive a TTL input, and it was working fine for a while. The only reason I can think of is that maybe the 7404 plus the LED took too much current and made the PIC brown-out, but I wouldn't expect that to permanently damage it. Any suggestions or even speculation would be appreciated, I'm completely stumped. I would go on testing with the new one to find out if it was just a shaky PIC to begin with, but I only have a few so I'd rather avoid risking the remaining ones if possible :). -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics