LOL ...

This discussion is EXACTLY like the one we had on a universal vacuum tube tester.

The original idea was to create a device that sniffs the inserted tube, measures the filament resistance, measures the socket capacitances and thus by a 90% certainty quesses correctly which tube is that one sitting in the socket.

The cruel reality was that tube capacitances vary a LOT and the filament resistance tells nothing about the filament drive voltage as it varies with the cathode temperature. Also, the needed power supply would be incredibly hard to design as the amperage on filament may vary from some milliamperes to 10..20 amperes. And at the same time the needed voltages on filament may vary from 1 to 150 volts. Not to talk about the anode voltage which easily exceeds 500 volts or even 5000 volts on exiter power tubes. The impedances on grids are typically measured in Giga ohms which is out of reach of most semiconductors.

So after almost beating the horse to death we came to a conclusion that the best test for a tube was to put it on use and then see that the voltages and currents were in specs. This of course assuming that the rest of the circuitry was healthy.

In the early days there was tube testers around. Those were so expensive that one had to consider whether he needs a new car or this state-of-the-art tester. One was not able to use one without the supplied manual because of all the tiggle-toggle switches and for new tubes an adaptor costed a small fortune.

ISP is a nice thing and I would never use parallel programmer for my "kitchen sink" projects. However, if I have to program 1000 of those, then it is an entirely different story and equipment.

But ... how about a portable, universal ISP (ICP) programmer ?