I built a LPT Pic micro programmer and it worked at first. I suspect a wire came loose and apparently shorted the "ack" line. Now the program can't detect a device. I tried building another,changing chips,changing chords. Never could get to it function again. Today I hooked it up to a lap top and everything works. Both programmers. Undoubtedly I have screwed up the PP port. The ack line (DO 10) It's part of the mother board. Anybody else had any problems like this? I can test all the other lines through the programmer except ack. The rest are ok. I've heard about PCI cards that function as a PP port. Is that a possibility?

There are PCI cards with parallel ports. Do a search on Google with "PCI parallel port".

G'day, It does sound like you have stuffed the printer port. Have you written to the port to confirm this? You should be able to get parallel/ serial cards to plug into your PCI bus. One thing to remember when interfacing to PC ports: they can be delicate. It's always a good idea to put a "sacrificial" buffer chip between the pp and your circuit (any TTL/CMOS buffer chip will do).Another good practice is to put current limiting resistors on the outputs of the printer port. These vary depending on the chip technology used, but LSTTL outputs usually use about 330R resistors. So, when you get your new card, put these in place and you may avoid a repeat. Happy programming, Elric