"I'm sure Nigel will be here any minute to tell you how bad they are"
lol.
Thanks for the info. I was hoping to find a programmer that could work with the MPLAB IDE software from Microchip, as it is current and has a C compiler. That may be why I missed the JDM one.
The end product of this project is going to be a user-programmable E-trigger for a paint ball marker. I am dissapointed with the quality of the Tippmann E-Trigger and upgrade boards are close to $100! If anyone is interested I will toss in the schematics for the finished design. Just PM me. I am in my senior year for Electrical Engineering so I will not finish this for at least 3 months.
Due to size limitations and only a few outputs and inputs needed (2 input pins, 2 output pins) and the fact that I will be doing mostly timing operations (in millisecond scale) I will try to use the 8-bit PIC's. I could do the project with the Arduino boards, but those require an external clock and are kinda overkill for the project. Would be a lot easier though, as I know how to program for those.