Quoting Michael Watterson : > Olin speaks great sense here. > > If I was doing production programming I'd ... But this is straying off the main point, isn't it? Byron's programmer =20 is targeting individuals who want to get their feet wet before =20 investing in any equipment, or need a one-time (or thereabouts) =20 programmer for some project they found on the web. I've seen this a =20 lot recently -- where a tinkerer has a soldering iron and breadboard, =20 etc, but wants to implement some PIC project and being able to spend a =20 few bucks on a chip and wire up a Q&D programmer on a breadboard would =20 be great. The other point being that if someone does not have a PIC =20 programmer they can't build a programmer that requires programming a =20 PIC. I'm in a similar situation with other chips currently. Been =20 investigating AVR's, MSP430, Renesas and other chips and don't want to =20 buy a programmer for each, just to evaluate. Atmel actually threw a =20 freebie AVR Dragon at me, but I can't get the thing to work right. =20 However, I found a post where someone used a Pickit2 to program AVR's =20 and it worked! If I had not, I'd be looking for a similar =20 hobbyist-level programmer I could put together on a breadboard for =20 short-term use. Cheers, -Neil. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .