Hi,
I used to be a big user of Motorola CPUs way back in the day. But when I got back into MCUs a couple of years ago
I looked at a lot of platforms and it pretty much boiled down to PIC32MX or ATMEL/AVR 8/32(so far).
1. Hardware: lots of variety and low cost.
2. Support: Least crippled tool chains from Major-corp., or cheap/ open-source alternatives.
Huge hobby base, especially AVR/Arduino.
Atmel and Microchip have great online resources.
Arduino site is expressly set up to be user friendly to beginners and non-tech heads.
The trick is not to be seduced(as I was) into some wiz-bang development platform that is cheap upfront
but is a hassle on the back end; expensive, crippled, lamer tool-chains, narrow hobby base.
The fact is that virtually all cheap Major-corp. dev/demo boards are targeted at
EEs who work for a company in the hope that they buy bizillion of their chips to put into washing machines or cars.
My only b*tch with AVR and Microchip(not exclusively) is that printed books on using these devices which go beyond
casual "Maker" needs are for the most part EE textbooks that are too expensive for me.
So I've had to spend many an hour on the web finding well written tutorials and coding examples for
MCUs that I like. Also finding good blogs/forums on tips, tricks, and work-arounds is a big plus.
The most important advice is that practically all MCUs are coded in ANSI C or C++, or C-whatever.
The better you get at C in general, the easier your life will be at coding for almost any MCU.
Later on, assembly code is good to know on your favorite MCU, because at some point
your gonna want to or have to tweak your C source using assembly for
for those routines that go outside the scope of your C compiler libraries.
I like ANSI C and the Pellas C IDE works well for me for generic C hacking and it's free.
If you want a cheap thrill farting around with controlling in BASIC try the
Duinomite/ Maximite boards or the Coridiumcorp.com BASIC chip.
Coridiumcorp claims that their $10usd chip(NXP LPC1114-28 pin dip) will run the equivalent
of 10 million lines of BASIC code a second. They give you the IDE-compiler for free.
Not a bad deal if true!
If your are a noob go with Arduino first.
Be careful when buying Arduino hardware online.
Buy from authorized sellers of authentic Arduino parts to support Arduino.
Arduino is open source so everybody and their dog has been banging out
Arduino clones and the quality of these are all over the map.
My general rule about buying clones, knock offs or equipment
is to let others buy it first and scrutinize the reviews on the item
and the supplier's street cred.
Otherwise deal with an authorized vendor: Digikey, Mouser, Avnet, Newark, etc.
I'm really anal about this since I got burned buying some fake
MCU parts, and crap test equipment from eb** and online resellers
from distant lands. ;~)
If you eventually want to break away from 8-bit,
I would suggest MIPS core chips like the PIC32MX or if you go ARM: Atmel or NXP LPCxxxx(LPCexpresso)
Olimex also has a broad range of good quality SBCs at a good price. But read the specs and look at the
schematics carefully on the board you are interested in to make sure the board has the right
mix of devices and features you want on it. If the board in question is flashed with
code make sure that the code has the features, compatibility, and updatability you are comfortable with.
All of the above is just my very personal, humble opinion regarding my experiences dealing with MCU chip choices
and buying electronics on a small budget.
Ciao
Happy coding