The main problem is that most of the software to run programmers (beyond simple EEPROMs, etc.) is proprietary, running under Windows, or DOS for the really old stuff. The reason for it to be proprietary is because the chip makers want NDAs on the programming algorithms.

The only true success I had was an old BP-1 serial port programmer, which is limited to 64K chips, but supports programming via XMODEM (and I think YMODEM) downloads. I have a Needham's EMP-31 with a USB port, but Parallels just wasn't up to emulating the USB sufficiently for it to work a few years ago when I tried it. But now I have a cheap Dull unInspiron with a real parallel port that I can dedicate to this function.

A used BP or Needham's programmer (make sure the Needham's has the personality modules!) is a good bet. For the price of a crappy Willem, you can have a professional programmer. Just be patient and watch for a good deal.

Also (because most of these are parallel port programmers), make sure that your PC has a genuine ISA-bus LPT port. Most of these will simply not work with PCI printer ports.

Good ol' Slashdot non-editors. Indeed, there's basically no way this chip can run Linux, at least not the way most of us know Linux. It's an ARM Cortex M3 (Thumb-2 instruction set only) with 512K flash and 64K RAM (about the maximum on CM3 these days), and has no external memory bus.

The mbed board is kind of nice, in that it also has a Cortex A-something chip that loads the 1768's flash from the last file saved to its small USB stick filesystem, and does a few other things. The idea is that once your project is finished, you can use it on a naked 1768 on your own board. There's also a "cloud"-based compiler for it (IDE and compiler are both a web service). It's interesting but all I'm going to say is check mbed.org, and that the board comes with a one-time-use (I think) registration code for the cloud compiler.

Damn, you actually think $100 is okay to get current? With FFXI you can get it with all current expansions for $15, sometimes less. (the code you get also works to fullly upgrade existing accounts) And I think that also includes the first month free for new accounts.

LOL WTF BBQ

Well at least I know that Abe Vigoda is still alive.

Unlike Satoshi Kon, who did.

Well then it's a good thing that patents don't matter when bulding crazy shit like this for fun or for a class grade, ain't it?

It's called an "Author Fillibuster".

Guess what they called the stuff they were delivering?

Homebrew.