>ALTHOUGH now that I think about it, in the case of no battery,
>there would be NO conduction, because there's nowhere for the
>current to go.  Which makes me an ass, and this thread moot,
>since the programming would occur with no battery present.
>
>It would still be nice to be certain that, if someone were to
>try to program the device with a battery in place, no smoke escapes.

Umm, hang on a minute mate. I know my maths is bad, but ...

If the battery is 9V, and the ICSP is at 5V, how is the diode going to
conduct ??? It seems to me that you may have another danger, which you may
like to verify first, and that is the risk of blowing up the regulator
because you are applying a voltage greater than the design output voltage.
You may like to try this on a sacrificial lamb first.

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