Funny, you should mention it. I did this for avr originally because some of the devices I was programming use avr. I then needed (wanted) to do if for the 89S series devices. I like the idea of an LCD display, however for now I am using three idiot lights. Red - something went wrong. Yellow, warning - BUSY and Green - success.

The only trouble I ran into was handling the incoming data at full speed from the terminal while loading the file.

I simply could not get the hardware handshaking to work properly.

Instead, I just slowed down the terminal's outgoing data to one line at a time with a 2/10 sec delay. In my code, I buffer 16 bytes (one line), then write the line during the delay. I even went as far as learning VB6 for a week, and I wrote a terminal app with a 100mS line delay. There are a few bugs, but it works ok.

I often wondered if there was a better way to do it.

As always, I appreciate any advice.