Hi Alan,

The wichits programer is the simplest one I have come across. But I would suggest you to leave the idea of building that since AT89C51 has been declare obselete. Better start with AT89S51 which is an replacement for AT89C51. AT89S51 has all the features that AT89C51 had + some extra features and this chip is In system Programmable. you don't need a programmer for programming this chip. Have a look at these links for information on how to use and program this micro.

http://www.kmitl.ac.th/~kswichit...gm30a.html

http://www.kmitl.ac.th/~kswichit/s52/s52slb.htm

Coming back to your questions.

1)inside the websiste there are two 89c51 chips... definitely one will be controlling the circuit and one is the microcontroller we want to burn.... since we don't not have any microcontroller programmer yet... do we need to burn a program into the 89c51 which controllng the circuit??

You are right, one chip is controlling the circuit it recieves the program code from PC through serial port and programs the other controller. Yes the hex file available on that website needs to be burnt into the controlling micro.

2)if we using 89s51 don't we still need a divice programmer to burn our program to it?

No you don't need a device programmer to burn the program into it you can be directly programmed. Have a look at the links I have given.

Regards,
Prahlad Purohit