Well, it works over Paralell now, exploiting no need for level converters and bullet-proof parport of my computer (several seriously broken devices didn't manage to burn it in the past, so I know it can survive a lot). Thing is, I feel pretty strong in programming, rather poor but still acceptable at projecting electronics, but I really lose with all that soldering stuff. Anything with more than 14 pins seems very scary to me, and SMT and similar are simply outside my skill area. :( And the chips you refer to don't seem like too easy to solder.



I'm hobbyist, and I seriously doubt the device will ever be replicated (at least by me, though likely many geeks out there will try to make a copy if I release the plans), so the 1-2pcs Maxim sends as samples are usually quite enough for me (and obviously cheapest) - and my experience with their samples services was the best of all. From soldering point of view, that would be definitely way easiest. But I'm not sure if saving 3-5 soldering points is worth writing 300 more lines of code, so I'm looking for other options before I try this one.