NOOOH! Don't sling it; or if you must,send it to me
or keep it to re-flash the PICKit 3 when,not if,it bricks it's own firmware during the hokey cokey it performs EVERY time you change chip, IDE, or your pair of socks. and remember you can still use the other firmware versions for the PICKit2 such as the serial analyser,as a useful lab tool.
I only bought the red button version fairly recently; i found a ' like-new ' one on ebay for 20 odd quid, in its packet with another of my favourite (now discontinued 20-pin) Low Pin Count demo boards. I love 'em:- they give you a handy little board with a button,a pot,and four LEDs and a breakout header,as well as a prototype area; they also handle almost any chip with either 8,14,or 20-pins, and don't take up half the desktop like Mikro E's boards do (or lag two years behind in chip support...) add a cheapo ZIF socket (with turned-pin headers soldered on) and they are the ideal 'dinky dev' tool.
I hate the PICKit3 SO much; setting it up takes too long...its a shambolic piece of engineering,so much so that a canadian guy has developed a 16f14xx based programmer that leaves PK3, with its multi-Mhz processor,in the dust.
And based on my experience, it seems the new PICKit 4 is following in its footsteps...the phrase 'half-baked' springs to mind.
