AVR

From YAAARC

[edit] Atmel

Atmel makes this nifty chip. For $20 from Digikey you can get the Butterfly which is an easy kit to get started with.

[edit] Compilers

The GNU C compiler for this is free! Some Linux distributions have AVR-GCC already packaged for apt/yum download and installation, including programming software. Just 'apt-cache search avr' under Debian! Here is WinAVR for those unfortunate to be running Windows.

There is an AVE-Eclipse plugin available for those familiar with the freely available and very powerful Eclipse IDE, which also is being packaged with some Linux distributions.