The PIC-EL has been working great, so far...
I've built a number of little test applications - basically enough to blink some LED's, etc. Not too exciting, but it's a learning experience.
Since I prefer to work under Linux, I've found that the programmer software that works the best with the PIC-EL is PonyProg 2000, from PonyProg. It's a pretty nice piece of software, and seems to work with just about anything.
I've also purchased a couple of different PICs like the 16F877a, and a bunch more 16F84a's, just so that I have spares to blow up. I've been breadboarding a couple of circuits, and was having problems getting them to work, until I realized that I was using a crystal oscillator, and the unprogrammed parts I was using defaulted to an R/C type oscillator... ooops.
I've also bought a couple of really cheap matrix keypads and LCD displays to use from BG Micro. Amazingly cheap stuff!
The next step will be developing some skills in working with a more complex application, and breadboading it. Probably something along the lines of talking to the LCD's, and sending them something useful to display.
The PIC-EL arrived, and I started building it....
After the package showed up, I did a quick inventory of the parts, and they all seemed to be there. ( I didn't check actual values - just a part count, since I was also watching the kids at the same time. )
Later in the evening, I started the actual assembly. The kit was very easy to assemble - it took about 2-1/4 hours of work, from heating up the iron, to running the test program that had already been installed on the processor. It's always great to have something work the first time, isn't it?
The next step will be to find some Linux software for the actual PIC development. While I have Windows installed, I prefer Linux. I see that there are a number of apps out there, linked at GNU PIC Links that look promising, so I'll take a peek at them.