[rugoso]

i have recently been interested in microcontrollers, chips you can program, to control things like motors and leds, and to recive data from sliders / knobs (potentiometers)

i got some PIC programmer and some pic chips and started doing some experiments ... but it seems like for me, a mac os x user, the AVR is a better option

im looking to buy some AVR "kits" from smileymicros.com very soon, as soon as i get some money ;) (i live in mexico so i have to pay more to get fedex)

im into programming music apps to make my own music, and i see a lot of potential to make hardware to control music/sound

hey, if you try the smilemicros kits, let me know ;)

[jgrahamc]

Look at Arduino. The entire design and software is open source. You can buy or make.

[rugoso]

thanks jgc

ive heard a lot about the arduino, i think im gonna get one or build one

but i also want to be able to build my own circuits, to learn to program the microcontrollers, so i can get closer to the idea of designing the hardware for my software

[tlrobinson]

Arduino is also based on Atmel microcontrollers (kind of like BASIC Stamps are based on PICs)

[dkd]

agree with AVR series, I myself is developing one data logger for my current company. I was using 8051 a few years back then.