(Wouter van Ooijen (www.voti.nl)) wrote in message ...
The 16F877 doesn't have an UART, and ELFA doesn't carry this chip
either.

It does, but it is called USART
OK, I only looked on your table of PICs when i tried to select one.


What is a MSSP, and can it be used to run RS232-communication?

No, it is for SPI and I2C

The only programmer I could find on ELFA seems to be the ISP-PRO

- if you have plenty of time: try one of the 'trivial' or 'zero-parts'
programmers

- 16F87x'a can be programmed with LVP
- check my Wisp628
- maybe consider using a bootloader (my WLoader, that page has links
to other bootloaders)
It would be best if I could build a simple programmer myself. The
programmer this guy is using looks very simple, would it be possible
to build something similiar for the 16F87x?
Link: http://www.piclist.com/techref/picli...k_2_1019487432

I would prefer to use free/open source software, the platform I'll be
running on is either DOS or windows XP.

- wisp628 fimware & software is available for DIY, but not fully free
- check ponypog and/or icporg: free but not open source
- some programs don't work on DOS, some don't work on protected
Windoze (like XP)
I got ICPROG (with a win2k driver, should probably work in XP) and
MPLab IDE 6.3 from Microchip. Would I need more/other software than
that? I am reading up on PICs at
http://www.mikroelektronika.co.yu/en...ok/picbook.htm

Åke

Wouter van Ooijen

-- ------------------------------------
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PICmicro chips, programmers, consulting