For my own use, in keeping with the philosophy of phrugality behind the XINO Basic board, I'd like to use a 16F88 with internal 8MHz OSC and with the two comparators used as inverters for the serial lines. There are, at least, three possible bootloaders - TinyPIC Bootloader, Spark Fun's BLoader & ds30. The latter is probably required for those using the bigger PIC but I think the others use less space on the 16F88.

However, I still need a power supply. So it might be better to use an external USB-Serial adapter which can also supply power. This frees the comparators for other uses and saves the cost of an external power supply. An external 5V power supply actually costs less than the USB-Serial adapter but the adapter has the advantage that there are virtual serial port drivers for Windows, Linux & OSX. Plus, using the comparators requires revising the bootloader code which may be above my paygrade. I'll have to wait until I have the XINO kit and USB-Serial adapter in hand to see how best to interface them. While waiting for them (as well as the release of the long-promised Tibbo EM500/GA1000 firmware), I'll do a shield layout for ConnectOne ethernet modules.

The people who make the XINO also have a prototyping shield called ProtoX which you can see on this page (scroll down). This should be compatible with Arduino and clones like Amicus18.