ZIF or ICSP?

There are two ways to interface your PIC with its programmer, a ZIF socket, and ICSP.

ZIF Socket or ZIF Adapter

ZIF stands for Zero Insertion Force. Basically, as I understand it (I've never used one), it's a little socket that it's very easy to slip your PIC into, and then clamp it down with a little lever. The way you program a PIC with one of these is you connect your programmer to the ZIF socket, take your PIC out of your board, slip it into the socket, clamp it down, program, then put the PIC back in the board.

I didn't go this way for a few reasons:

  1. ZIF Sockets can be pricey
  2. You have to keep moving your PIC from the board to the socket, which can get dicey when you're debugging.
okay, so only two reasons.

ICSP

ICSP = In Circuit Serial Programming. You wire your programmer straight to your board then program. This is cheap, the only cost is some wire. If you want to do it up fancy like I did, you can spend as much as 75 cents on parts. It also means you keep your PIC in one place during debugging.