Microcontrollers for Beginners

Assumptions

You:

• Do not have a lot of money
• Do not have a lot of electronics gear or experience.
• Do not have a lot of programming experience.
• Do want quick gratification.
• Do not want to do really fancy stuff right off the bat.

Use the Arduino

Use the Arduino Because:

• It is a development board
• It is inexpensive.
• There is a broad amount of activity on the web, and a lot aimed at non techincl users.
• It and its software is open source.
• There is a lot of library support for common tasks.
• You do not even need a programmer, comes with a serial bootloader.

There are a bunch of "Shields" available as add ons:

• Shields Stuff to stick on your arduino!

Use Something Else

If the assumptions do not apply to you, or you have some special requirements then:

At least use a development Board

You are ready to go at almost the cost of components, you can get a kit or prebuilt. Some of these are:

• USB Bitwacker
• PIC Kit 2 or cloen
• Insert your favorite here.

Use a high level language

The best may be C this is written about the PIC but applies to other processers as well Use C for PIC Programming!

but almost any is better than assembler -- this is dispite what the hard core says.

Other

• Google "Microcontrollers for Beginners" many of the references will not agree with the above. I have looked at a lot of them and am not convinced, maybe you will be.
• Arduino Links