Most of laptops nowadays do have USB ports. ;-)

Probably USB based programmer is the way to go. Wisp628
is great. A USB based Wisp628 (Wisp2550?) and EasyProg
(EasyProg Pro?) will be even greater!

GTP-USB/WinPIC800 is one such programmer (freeware but 
closed source). It supports lot of PICs and dsPICs.
http://perso.wanadoo.es/siscobf/winpic800.htm (Spanish)
http://forum.microchip.com/tm.asp?m=108574 (uChip Forum post)

PICkit 2 (US$35) is another promising USB based programmer.

The following is from the post to pickit-devel by Dan Butler 
"the keeper of the PICkit" from Microchip. 

It is good to know that PICkit 2 will support more 16F parts and 
18F parts within this year and even dsPIC support is on the
pipeline. It is also great that he is very supportive of a Linux 
version of the PICkit 2 host application. 

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan.Butler@Microchip.com
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2005 1:39 AM
To: pickit-devel@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Firmware upgrading (was Re: Suitable name for the PICkit
project)
...
*  PIC16F627A/628A/648A support -  It works now and will be 
included in the next release.  No firmware changes required. 
*  Currently working on supporting PIC18F's and additional PIC16F's 
for release around the end of the year. 
*  dsPIC is slated for the following release. 
...
*  Cooperation - I personally want to see a Linux version and my boss 
is supportive too.  I'll help anyway I can -  share how things work 
and where we're going and provide sample parts to participating 
members (just ask!).  See a need for a specific command?  lets talk.  
For example, we had a discussion of Row Erase - I didn't see the need 
for it, but if you want it, we can add it.

...

Best Regards, 
Dan Butler 

-----Original Message-----
From: Wouter van Ooijen 
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 10:07 PM


> Couldn't this be solved by using a MAX232 or similar, looping 
> the signal through itself for a voltage boost?
> Power would be taken from USB or PS/2 connectors (but then 
> you could as well use a Wisp628 anyway).

You would loose the no-external-power appeal of the seial-port-powered
programmers. If you have power available you might (as you say) as 2well
use a propper programmer :)

Wouter van Ooijen
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