| There are a bunch of options... I've never tried it, but Arduino sounds like a good option for you: Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. http://www.arduino.cc/ It's based on an Atmega micrcontroller, which is also popular among hobbyists. TI has a dead simple (looks like a thumb drive, plugs in USB) and cheap ($20) microcontroller programmer with microcontroller called the eZ430: http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/ez430tool/index.htm And Microchip has a pretty cheap and simple programmer for most PICs called the PICkit2: http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_P... As far as connecting these things to your computer, USB is probably easiest I've used the PIC18FXXX5 series which has built in USB support (just add a few cheap components and a connector!). Here's an excellent website: http://pic18fusb.online.fr/ And of course since you're interested in making MIDI controllers, check out MidiBox: http://www.midibox.org/ Finally, a couple good resources/forums I find helpful: http://ladyada.net/ http://forum.sparkfun.com/ I wish I had more time to play with all this stuff... |