I'm not concerned with why this stuff has not functioned successfully in the past, though I am concerned that there's been so little discussion about how to deal with the fact.

Initially, it's not surprising, there were good adapters and not-so-good adapters. It's more interesting to me to know which ones work well and which ones don't, and with which programmers, for example, they work and with which ones they don't.

The O/P has a problem which needs resolution. Perhaps a deeper discussion of which sort of programmer is on his board and which USB adapters actually work with that programmer would help him. I've seen posts from various ATMEL MCU users that suggest that not all serial programmers suggested by ATMEL work with all ATMEL MCU's. Further, it's possible that not all ATMEL-recommended software works with all of these programmers. I suspect that it's within that set of problems that the solution to his problem lies. I can't help him because I never, Never, NEVER use ATMEL products.

RE