To resolve the various issues, it is necessary to switch to more up-to-date programming software. As presented, the hardware is compatible with the original "Tait Parallel PIC Programmer". Various software packages that support this type of programmer are freely available on the Internet.

Using IC-Prog

Fig.1: this is the main IC-Prog window. This easy-to-use package programs PICs reliably and it's free!

We suggest "IC-Prog", as it is well-supported and free for personal use. You can obtain the latest version of IC-Prog from www.ic-prog.com. In all, you'll need to download three files: the application (icprog105a.zip), the driver for Windows NT/2000/XP (icprog_driver.zip) and the help file (icprog.chm).

Note that the filenames will change over time as IC-Prog is improved and updated.

Unlike most Windows applications, IC-Prog is not self-installing, so you'll need to manually create a folder to contain the files. We named ours "C:\IC-Prog". It's then just a matter of unzipping the first two files into the new directory and creating a shortcut on your desktop (or start menu) to "icprog.exe".

The help file (icprog.chm) should also be saved in this new folder.