It said the same thing to me also - sigh!!

There is one hope though - try to get the actual cable from ATMEL themselves - they sell it for 25 USD or so says the Indian distributor.

This is better, rather than going into unnecessary details like noise / spike /245/ 244 / HC / LS / length of cable etc. It takes you ( or me ) nowhere.

I am now with 89c51RD2 and life is peaceful.

Raghu