I’ve just decided to get back into microcontrollers, and I wanted to start out with a cheap programmer for a cheap PIC. The simplest one I found (and it’s REAL cheap) is right here. It connects via parallel port, and is capable of programming the PICMicro PIC16F84 and similar chips. I’ll post pics when I build it (if I do). Anyone know of any good robotics projects I should take a look at?

I’ll probably just end up testing the PIC with some simple programs, and once I get a handle on it, I’ll start thinking about a real design. Here is a good page with some projects to look at to start. Note: These sites aren’t new, just new to me