wow, that xeltek unit looks nice but at $549 usd, way more than i can afford right now.

i have a couple of programmers right now that i am using - the EPICplus programmer for the PICs, and a homebuilt EASY/IO programmer using the PonyProgrammer SW. both are parallel interface and both have worked quite well for my needs. the problem is that my desktop is dying, and i am looking to trade up to an ultralight notebook. the problem now stems with the notebook search in that parallel printer ports now rarely exist in any respectable notebook.
which is prompting my search for another set of tools - usb. i would prefer not to add a notebook port expander for the parallel, since some of these don't work all the well and the cost is quite high.

i bought the melabs serial programmer (but have not had chance to use it as yet), but was wondering has anyone tried building the JDM programmer and tried it with the EEPROM interface?

thanks again for your recommendations so far!