Need microprocessor trainer, oscilloscope advice?

[Billy Pettit]

Dave McGuire wrote:
On Sep 11, 2006, at 7:23 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> Maybe, but there is one heck of a difference between working on an
>> emulator and using (and modifying, interfacing, etc) the real 
>> hardware.
>> And the OP wants to learn about hardware, I believe.
>
> Why not start with a "mostly on one chip" type of setup, say a Z8 or 
> 8051
> and work from there?  There are plenty of small circuits published 
> using
> them and, as the student's knowledge grows, other bits can be added on.

   This is a good idea.  One can put together, using wire-wrap or 
point-to-point soldering, an 8752-based machine in an hour or two.  
Five chips, only one of which is a 40-pinner.  Burn a copy of the 
well-known 8052AH-BASIC into it and you've got yourself quite a neat 
little machine.  The BASIC interpreter has excellent I/O capability, 
interrupt support, and even floating-point math.

   If anyone wants to do this but lacks the stuff, I have 8752 chips and 
the means to program them.  And the BASIC interpreter, of course.

            -Dave

I agree with dave.  But would add that some of the smaller PIC devices are
also easy to work with and cheap.  And there are several one line tutorials,
as well as lots of supporting literature.  Buy a couple of issues of Nuts
and Volts to get started.

And for a beginner, there is a nice book "Programmable Logic"  that takes
you through several of the basic I/O devices using simple logic interfaces,
to demonstrate how easy they are to use and understand.

I just found one on eBay for 99 cents, worth the price for getting started.

Much more expensive, but Elektor did an outstanding beginners book on
computers.  Still available, but by time you import it, you're looking at
$50 +.

Billy