if i works i am fine with it.
That's just the thing. JDM's very often just plain don't work. We get messages in this forum constantly from people who can't get JDM programmers to work. They were designed long ago for old fashioned computers. Computers have changed. JDM's sometimes work, but very often not on modern computers.
i am just looking for somthing to get started with. because on all of the other ones i have to buy the pickit2 and then i have to buy a PIC and then i have to buy an ICSP cable and then the crystal and then the caps. it just seems easer for now if i get this.
And we're giving you excellent advice for the best way to get started. A few cables, connectors, crystals/caps are very very cheap. The crystal & caps are not really necessary on most PICs, as they mostly have internal oscillators. PICs are cheap too.
That 16F84A is an antique. Better to start with a more modern chip.
Buy a JDM if you want, but don't be surprised if it won't work and you end up scrapping it and buying something better anyway. You won't get your money back from an Ebay seller.
For an experimenter, programming PICs in a ZIF or standard IC socket like this thing
sucks! It's a horrible way to work. You program your chip, pry it out and plug it into your target circuit, find out it doesn't work, pry it out, plug it into the programmer, make your change, pry it out and plug it into your target circuit, find out it doesn't work, pry it out, plug it into the programmer, make your change, pry it out and plug it into your target circuit, find out it doesn't work, pry it out, plug it into the programmer, make your change, pry it out and plug it into your target circuit, find out it doesn't work, pry it out, plug it into the programmer, make your change...
Hundreds and
thousands of times! It's slow and tedious. The pins on the chip wear out and break off. I've done it (long time ago) and hated it. ICSP was the best change I ever made to my setup.
With ICSP you have a simple 5-pin connector on your target circuit with a cable to the programmer. When your program doesn't work, you make your change and hit a couple keys or mouse clicks to reprogram the chip and test again. Simple and quick.
And another huge badness with the JDM - no debugging. Hardware debugging is something that, once you've tried it, you wonder how you ever got along without it. PICkit 2 and ICD2 programmers do debugging, working with the MPLAB IDE software to make finding out what went wrong with your code vastly easier than doing it without a debugger.