MELABS Serial Programmer help

[nigelstephens]

Hi
Just got one of these and am trying to program my first chip.
I can read an 16F877A okay with 3FFF being returned.

When I try and write the bootloader for Proton+ I get the message
"Code programming error at 1F00"

When I then read the code again i get spurious results like

0000- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3ffe 0000 3ff8 3ffe
0008- 3ffe 3ff8 3ffe 3ffc 3ffe 3ffa 3fee 0df8
0010- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0018- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0020- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0028- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0030- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0038- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0040- 3fff 3fff 3fa0 3f7e 3fff 3fff 3f80 3fff
0048- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0050- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
0058- 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff 3fff
...

The code I was trying to load starts like this

0000- 0000 301f 008a 2f0d
1f00- 2f00 0190 0198 1683 0198 1283 018c 018a
1f08- 0000 0000 0000 0000 2f00 138b 300c 27ba
1f10- 3030 0090 018e 018f 100c 1410 0064 180c
1f18- 2f01 1e8c 2f16 081a 1010 3af0 1903 2f21
1f20- 2f01 30a0 27c8 27c3 00a2 30a0 27c8 0822
.....

I have been through all the checks like Voltage and serial cable.
Tried 2 cables and input v is 17.2

The board has 7805 and 7808 chips and the Vout is 5 and 8 or very close.

The PIC is in the right way and jumber cable connected for 40 pin chip.

Any help would be great.
Thanks

[Bruce]

Have you previously programmed the PIC?

What does it show if you read it and view config fuse settings?