----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dumitru Stama" <list@mirosat.com>
Subject: Re[2]: [PIC]


> A very simple circuit is something that can be made quickly and
> without too many components on a piece of board (the one with a lot of
> holes pre-made in it)
> dics

Most PIC programmers are pretty close to "very simple".

As others have pointed out, you can't get a programmer to program "all"
PICs, but most of the circuits out there will program most of the PICs.

There are really two kinds of programmers, the simple, and the not so
simple.

The simple programmers are nice because they are supported by a wide range
of free software.  Unfortunately, free software isn't always all that well
supported, so when a new PIC comes out, you may have to wait a while until
it gets supported, and you will have to do some hunting around to find the
program that works with your programmer and the PIC you want to program.

The other downside of the simple programmers is that they will not work with
a USB port, even with a USB to serial converter.  As more and more PCs come
without serial or parallel ports, this gets to be a bigger and bigger
problem.  Further, more recent versions of Windoze make it hard to work with
the ports directly, so you may have a hard time getting the software to
work, or it may require you to do things that risk your system's security in
order to make the programmer work.

The not so simple programmers have a PIC on the programmer.  The problem
with this is that you now need to have a pair of programs, one for the PC
and one for the PIC.  In general, this means that you are at the mercy of
the supplier of the programmer.  Sometimes (as in the Wisp628) you can get
the source, so depending on your programming skills you might not be totally
at the mercy of the supplier, but when you want support for another PIC,
then you either need to convince the supplier to add it, or you need to go
buy a different programmer.  To an extent, this is even true of the pricey
programmers from Microchip.

If I were in your shoes, I would probably go build a simple, Tait-style
programmer, grab a copy of WinPic (the one from DL4YHF), and try to be
content with the list of PICs that are supported. But I have to admit, it is
awful tempting to just go buy a Wisp or EasyProg (they're not very
expensive) and let Wouter or Olin deal with the hassle of chasing after the
programming algorithms.

--McD


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