The 2716 programmer my son built when he was in 7th grade was driven from the parallel port, as it was intended to look like a printer. There was a one-shot that drove the busy signal for 50 ms, and the strobe falling edge triggered it, while the rising edge of the one-shot incremented the address counter. IIRC, the 2816 is a bit more trouble.

Nevertheless, careful reading of the spec's will tell you what you can do to make the process easy, if that's what you want to do.

I'd take seriously the recommendations that have been made to use an easy-to-program-via-ISP chip. The easiest I've found is the Maxim/Dallas DS89C450, which you can probably get as a free sample. I say it's the easiest because the programming circuit is very simple and uses the serial port. There are numerous others, but you have to be very careful that the programmer hardware is compatible with the exact MCU you're programming. A number of them differ by one letter or number, and that throws the applicability of the programmer into doubt.

If you have funds available, with which you can purchase a programmer, that's probably preferable to building your own. With the Maxim/Dallas DS89C4x0, it's so simple even a rank beginner can build it with high confidence.

Avoid shortcuts or substitutions. If a schematic calls for a particular part, that's what you should use. If the parts list calls for 74HCT244, don't substitute a 74LS244, even if you're pretty sure it will work.

RE