Red,
I have to ask this question, as I'd hate to see you continue spending cash unneccessarily.
Q. What is your ultimate goal? Are you simply trying to mod your Xbox controller, or do you have an interest in developing PIC programs as a hobby?
The reason that I ask is because all of your posts have centered around the 12F683 chip, which is a common modding chip.
You appear to have wasted money on an antiquated Velleman K8048 programmer (
http://forum.velleman.be/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1878&sid=b55e57e4bef62280366ab30d295f229c - which I also have and now seems to be a dust magnet
) in the quest to program this sole chip.
If that is indeed yourself...
I don't know where your ambitions lie at this point, as to whether you intend to:
1) Create and release your own mod-chip code.
2) Use example code from the Microchip forum (be aware, IIRC some of the provided code will time-out after 40 or 50 tries), or you intend to..
3) Read a bought chip and program your own.
1) - Good for you, not an easy task for a beginner.
2) - Again, be aware that some free code may be usage-crippled.
3) - Any savvy developer and retailer is likely to code-protect his/her product, which means that you will not likely succeed in reading the contents of the chip, in order to replicate it on another chip.
Soooo, the advice is this:
If your sole intention is to mod your Xbox controller, you are going about it the wrong way. Cut your losses and just buy a chip.
Otherwise, if you intend to learn about PICs and develop your own programs, you could either buy the PICkit2 which is purely a programmer, or you could buy Bill's Junebug which is a PICkit2 compatible programmer with a tutorial board for the 16F88 and 18F1320 combined.
Please let us know what you
actually want, so we can properly advise you.
Regards.