FIRST IR Board PIC Programming Helful info:

The white 6-pin connector on the FIRST IR board 
can be used to program the PIC chip.  The pinout 
conforms to a std that is popular for PIC's,
called ICSP.  (In-circuit serial programming)
Programmers made by Microchip use a connector 
called RJ12, which looks like a telephone jack 
with 6 contacts.  Some programmers come with a 
cable that can plug directly onto the 6-pin in-line 
header on the FIRST IR board.  Others will need some 
sort of adapter cable, which you may have to either 
purchase separately, or make yourself. Please be 
careful when you plug the cable onto the white 
connector on the IR board that you line up pin 1
on the cable with pin 1 on the board, which is marked.
Do not go by the way the cable naturally wants to 
plug onto the connector, as the keying may be 
non-standard.  If you plug the cable in backwards,
you may possibly damage the PIC or your programmer.

If you use an ICD2 type of programmer, when you go 
to program the chip, you will get a warning that says
Microchip does not support programming with internal 
reset and internal oscillator together in this chip.
Don't worry about that warning.  Just hit continue
and it will work properly.

Some programmers can be configured to supply 5V to 
the target system during programming.  If your 
programmer is configured this way, do not power
the IR board while programming.  Some programmers 
take power from the target system +5V pin during 
programming.  If yours is configured that way, 
you will need to power the IR board during programming.

You may need to erase the chip first.  Some 
programmers will perform an erase automatically,
others will not.  Re-programming the chip will
erase any IR command data that you have trained.

The .hex file has the "code protect" bit set, which 
means you won't be able to read back the data once it's 
been programmed.  The programmer will perform a verify
BEFORE setting this bit, so you don't need to clear it 
unless you want to do your own verify after programming
manually.

Bob Grieb