Hi all. New to the forum here but have been visiting 8052.com extensively as I've been learning the MCS-51 family.

I just recently purchased 5 of the AT89S8253 uC's along with Atmel's AT89ISP programmer cable, which works via the parallel port. The issue however is that I run Ubuntu 11.10 so I can't use Atmel's ISP programmer software to run it (which I've already attempted to install via Wine with no success). I've tried to use uisp as well as avrdude (and I have a uC definition for the AT89S8253 written in the avrdude.conf file along with a definition for the AT89ISP cable) and neither program is communicating with the chip.

I have also done a "chmod a+rw /dev/parport0" at the command line to give full access to the parallel port. I am also using a regulated 5V power supply on the target board and have the power pins on the AT89ISP cable connected to target power.

I've rechecked my wiring 5+ times and it is fully correct -

Vcc - +5V
GND - Ground
EA - Vcc (direct connection/no pull up resistor)
MCLR - +5V via a pull up resistor (to give the programmer control of the MCLR pin)
XTAL1/XTAL2 - 8MHz crystal with 2x 20pF capacitors to ground on each
P1.5 - MOSI on programmer
P1.6 - MISO on programmer
P1.7 - SCK on programmer
MCLR - RST on programmer

The chips are brand new/have never been programmed. I read something regarding fuse bit 4 that I'm not too clear on with new chips. I've also learned that apparently the AT89S8253 is very different from most others in the AT89S series.

Can someone please direct me to either software that will work with the AT89ISP cable and/or show me how to configure either uisp or avrdude to work with this programmer?