problem with picall

[Archilochus]

Does anyone know of other software that works with the p16pro40 programmer, so then I can determine if it is a software problem or hardware problem. A simple programming circuit that will work on picallw in place of the p16pro40 programmer would also help.

I used picall when programming 16F628's and it worked fine - then when I tried 16F87x or any of the "A" suffix devices it just would not work.
I've been using WinPicProg by Nigel Goodwin - works fine with my pic16pro40 programmer:

http://www.winpicprog.co.uk/

Note that updates for new devices are infrequent - check the list of supported devices to see if it includes those you want to use.