PIC programmer selection

[circuitmangler]

I'm got a lot of experience in the 8051 world, but I'm relatively new to the
PIC scene. On a whim I picked up some 12F675's, and I'm finding that
the choices of programmers and software are a little overwhelming.

I'm looking for help with:

a) the cheapest way to program the 675's (I'm not adverse to making a
parallel or serial port interface). And do I need a +18V power supply
to program these chips?

b) the best affordable PIC programmer which will serve me well for this
excursion I'm making into the PIC world. I'm not sure what PICs I'll want
to use, but I don't want to buy multiple programmers if I don't have to.
As long as it programs the chips that I'll ever want to experiment with,
that'll be fine. It doesn't have to program chips that are considered
obsolete or OTP-only chips. And a programmer that is supported under
Windows and Linux would be preferable.

Many thanks,

cm

P.S. I've just noticed this thread which helps:

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/smd-soldering-hot-air.10708/

If anyone has anything more to add, or 12F675 specific help, I would appreciate it.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

As I said in the other thread, the P16PRO40 is probably the most cost effective option - buying it as a kit is incredibly cheap, hardly worth sourcing the parts yourself.

For a little bit of PIC history, David Tait of Manchester University is considered the 'father' of low cost PIC programming. Most PC based PIC programmers are derived from his original design, even though David is a software engineer - and makes no claim to being at all experienced in hardware design. This is shown by his first design, which used the rather inappropriate CMOS switches to switch Vdd and Vpp, his next generation design introduced the familiar PNP transistors instead (which is how I would have designed it), and this has set the 'standard' for most PIC programmers which have followed.

As for your OS requirements, LINUX software is still fairly rare, although there are a few examples available - considering the enthusiasm for LINUX amongst programmers, I wonder if the OS doesn't lend itself to this kind of realtime, hardware 'bashing' programming style?.

 

[KOEZE]

I use the Brenner5 from www.sprut.de and I like it a lot. If you want to program more than PIC's, take a look at Willem Epromprog at www.willem.org. This thing programs nearly everything AVR, Eprom, Pic you name it.

EJK