Hi J,

Yup, as Steve said, MicroChips offer free samples. I've already ordered many chips from them that way; no hassle, no questions, fast shipping (from Malaysia I believe, took 3 days). I recommend the 18F4550, it looks a lot like the 16F877, but has more bells and whistles.

As soon as I figure this out, I'll report back here with my findings like I did for the graphic LCD. So far I haven't been able to find all the pieces to the puzzle. It's not a matter of them being spread out over several threads or sites, I have no problem with searching. There's 'some' information that people are just not posting. I suspect it's the PC side that is incomplete in the examples I've seen so far.

All I need is a working example of sending a keystroke, I can take it from there. But by the way things appear, I'll probably have to dish out $600 for that specialized software that is supposed to spit it all out; PIC and PC code. I just don't have that kind of money lying around...

http://www.tracesystemsinc.com/usb_tools.ivnu

Robert