Programmers

Programmers are usually highly hardware dependent, and there are many available. Some are looking into developing platform-independent programmers which will work through serial ports.

Andrew Pines has reverse engineered the protocol for Microchip's Picstart+ programmer. If you have a picstart+ then this is the way to go. The latest version of picp can be found on Andrew's Pic Page or this mirror. Thanks to James Newton for the mirror.
Mark Aikens has written Odyssey, "a PIC microcontroller programming application for Linux. It was originally designed to be used with the EPIC programmer by microEngineering Labs but is flexible enough to be used with other programming hardware."
There is a program, prog84, to program a PIC16C84 via a Linux box's parallel port. Recent enhancements allow prog84 to program 16c6x/7x/923/924, 16f87x and 24c16 (and similar) devices. (There's also a version of prog84 for windows too). Wim Lewis has a USB version.
Simon Bridger maintains PP06, an open-source Production programmer for Microchip's PIC micros. It's specifically designed for use in factory in-circuit programming and development of master/slave systems. It supports many pics, and is easily extended to different hardware.
David Tait wrote up his "Machine Independent Parallel Interface" (MIPI).
Sergio Costas' PTK4L drives a simple parallel port programmer that he has designed.
Erik's MIPP device.
Paul Vollebregt's (vollebre@worldonline.nl) code for a PIC16C74 Programmer which uses David Tait's 16c84 programmer hardware.
Brian Lane has finally released a new version of picprg v2.3. This new version works with the 2.4.x Linux Kernals and is backwards compatible with the earlier v2.2 of picprg (see below). Brian has also written a Linux Journal article describing how picprg works.
(Note: See the more recent version of picprg.) The excellent PicProg 2.2¹ works with many parallel port programmers. If you have the Dontronics DT-001 programmer, you need to make your ~/.picprgrc look like this:
```
# Linux PIC programmer configuration v2.0
port=1
vpp=-5
vdd=-4
clock=+3
datao=+2
datai=+10
idaddr=2000
eeaddr=2100
cfaddr=2007
colors=1
```
¹Unfortunately this version does not work with the Linux 2.2 kernel. Either use Byron Jeff's patch or Brian Lane's newer version of picprg v2.3. Note that Byron's patch is in the pass word protected Piclist Archive. The username and password are both piclist (but please don't tell the spammers this!).
Byron Jeff also has built a Trivial 16F87X LVP programmer, a Low Voltage Programmer for Microchip's PIC16F87X Flash family. Update DEC01: The 16C62x parts are also now supported.

Scenix/Ubicom Programmers

James Bowman, the original author of gpasm, has been dabbling with Scenix/Ubicom microcontrollers and has created the dlscenix serial programmer. One of the benefits is that the protocol between the host and the programmer is ASCII/Human Readable and thus easily debuggable with a simple terminal emulator. Schematics and GPL'd software are provided.