Thanks for pointing out that the next step up would involve learning 
"unix programming" in C. Maybe that is the key.

It is strange for me to see you even mentioned Z80. Anyway I guess
low end ARM is the way to go for me. The other candidate to me was 
TMS320F24xx DSP which I looked at once for power converters. Now I
am not in the line of power electronics any more so maybe that is
out. I am not really looking for things high-end enough to run
uClinux or even Linux or similar since I think my C skills are not
up to the standard yet.

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: William "Chops" Westfield [mailto:westfw@mac.com]
Sent: Friday, July 08, 2005 2:42 PM

I don't think that the AVR or dsPIC are sufficiently "higher" than
the PICs to be a next step "up."  ARM probably qualifies.  Also
68k, coldfire, powerpc, maybe Z80.  And x86 embedded variants.  Perhaps
MSP430 (high end), although that lacks some in the cpu power department.
You're definitely into the realm of von Neuman architectures (shared 
code and data address space), unless you want to look at midrange DSPs...
It depends which part of 'higher end' you're interested in, mostly.
And you also enter the realm where board design gets replace by SBC
buying decisions; there are usable platforms in the form of palmtops,
game machines, off-the-shelf routers that happen to run linux,
Whole PC-architecture things no bigger than an SODIMM,
cheap last-generation desktops, and laptops.  Lots of choices.
...
But I think the next step up would involve learning "unix programming"
in C.  Many architectures run something that looks like unix, and many
others provide and/or emulate the unix ("posix") libraries...

BillW
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist