picstart 16B1

I,ve just won an auction for one of these, hoping to use MPLAB with it, rather than using a seperate programmer. Of course, in my rush to win the auction, I didn't look into how nearly useless this early picstart is. I,ve done the usual google searches and discovered that an Australian company (Newfound Electronics) offered a replacement firmware. Well, I,ve downloaded that hex file, now I need to get hold of a blank 17c42 and then get it programmed. As Newfound no longer support this product (ala Microchip), I not sure exactly what the new firmware will give me. Anyone out there who has used the replacement 'phoenix' firmware? What exactly does it offer me? I,m hoping at least, that it will fool MPLAB into thinking it has a picstart plus on the end of a serial port. Of course I realise that it may not give the full list of PIC chips that the plus can program. Thanks, Texy