On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 11:55:10AM -0400, Detrick Merz wrote:
> On 10/29/07, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderholm@telia.com> wrote:
> > Detrick Merz wrote:
> > > No local processor.  Barely more than just a parallel cable.
> >
> > OK. You will see a few supporters of that kind of
> > "programmer", and many opponents here... :-)
> 
> What's the preferred programmer hardware these days then?

Depends on who you ask. Simple USB programmers like the PicKit2 and Olin's
EasyProg are near the top of heap nowadays. Wouter's WISP628 still gets
strong play. Parallel and especially simple serial programmers have fallen
out of favor. Two major reasons is the slow disappearace of the ports and
the flat out disrespect of specifications, especially for serial ports.
Today's serial port is just as likely to swing between 0V and 3.3V as
anything else. Serial programmers like the JDM were designed to work with a
proper EIA232 speced serial port with proper modem control signals. Hard to
find nowadays, hard to find.

Personally I'm a fan of bootloaders. That way the programmer is on the
target and you can choose the interface that works for you along with
choosing the interface pins that works for you too. Wouter has developed
excellent 1 pin, 1/2 pin, and we at least designed a true zero pin
bootloader, though I don't think anyone has gotten around to implementing
it yet. USB to serial cables are plentiful and inexpensive, so serial
interfaces are still easy to do as long as you don't need EIA-232 voltages.

>  Looking
> through the "beginners" section on piclist.com, most of them seem to
> be "build this one yourself it's cheap and easy and will let you
> program a whole stack of different parts."  Of course, I find some
> more commercial grade ones there, quite beyond my budget (I'm just a
> hobbiest!).  Picall seems the most bang-for-the-buck and still almost
> affordable, but alas I'm in the US, so I would like to be sure before
> having one shipped across the pond, especially as bad as exchange
> rates are.

> I know there are many factors, but being able to program many types of
> chips (at least 'F84A, 'F628A and 'F877A) is important.  Being able to
> use software under Linux is a strong point too, but I will bend on
> this if I have to.

PicDev should meet all of your needs on the software side. Alain has done a
fabulous job of tracking all types of hardware programmers and programs a
ton of devices from the 12F all the way to 18F families. Also there is a
command line interface if you want to avoid the whole IDE.

Keeping the programming software updated is really the hardest part.

There's no need to be dissuaded at this point. If the Trivial Programmer
works for you, then use it until it doesn't. You can move on to something
else then.

BAJ
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