Hi Bob, Although I am a newbie in MCU but, I reckoned STK500 will be a good start. It can program bulk of ATMEL's MCU family plus, it is able to set some fuses which other programmers cannot. It can double up as a development board and above all, it is cheaper than most of Microchip's development boards of the same category. It is expandable too by purchasing additional daughter boards. For eg. one of the daughter baord can support high-end chip like the ATMega 169 and another can support ATMega 128. As for which range of MCU is a good starter, I think it could be 8515 or 8535. Somehow, I equate it to 16F877. Pls note that the above is just my opinion cos' I always come across these 2 chips in many of the projects mentioned in magazines (eg. Circuit Cellar and Elektor). cheers, Davis Robert L Cochran wrote: Does the AVR Starter Kit include samples? I "applied" for one a year ago with Atmel, and they sent me a nice information pamplet, but no samples. I suppose I sounded like a poor kid in elementary school to whoever made that decision. Also, what is a good AVR to start with? I know, Byron Jeff and others will advocate the high-end ones. which ones are those, and does Digi-Key have them? Finally, what's a good programmer for AVRs? Thanks a lot Bob Herbert Graf wrote: >>Has anyone ever considered moving from PIC to Atmel AVR's ? If so, what >>are good reasons to move ? >> >>I am thinking that there's a few advantages in the development tools >>available, but then I am making an uninformed statement... Anyone else >>willing to shed an enlightended opinion? > > > I just received an AVR starter kit and have now looked over the AVR > architecture. I've found that in many ways it's similar to PICs. I can't > really see a direct reason for choosing one over the other so far, the AVR > is a little nicer to deal with when it comes to banks, but it's got some > annoyances too. TTYL > > ---------------------------------- > Herbert's PIC Stuff: > http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/ > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList > mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu > > -- Bob Cochran Greenbelt, Maryland, USA http://greenbeltcomputer.biz/ -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online by April 15th -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu