got to buy a programmer. is the pi6pro40 the way to go. will it work with most free software.,16f628 chip. do most use the printer port, kit or finished, best place to buy in the states. thanks

 

The P16PRO40 is a fairly standard parallel port PIC programmer, it's basically an enhanced version of the original David Tait (the father of cheap PIC programmers) design.

The two leading free packages (WinPicProg and ICProg) both directly support this programmer.

As the author of WinPicProg, perhaps I'm biased?, but it was the first Windows parallel port programmer software - and ICProg looks to be based on the old 16 bit code for WinPicProg (and still includes my name in the disassembler).

The P16PRO40 is my recommended programmer, it does everything that is required in a nice standard manner.