W3JDR wrote:
Any of you who are interested programming PICs with a Basic compiler might
want to take a look at this site:
http://www.oshonsoft.com/

This is a complete Pic Basic Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with
some very nice simulation tools included. Time-limited demo version is free.
Registered version is only $19! Competitive products sell for many hundreds
and aren't nearly as complete.

I've recently started using the WinAVR toolkit, which
consists of GCC ported to the AVR family, a very
comprehensive avr-libc implementation, and all of
the associated Gnu-based build tools. It's really
quite snazzy and it's the price that hams love: free.

I did spend $80 for the Atmel STK500 programmer kit from
Digi-Key, but that's all I needed.

Overall, the AVR port of GCC seems excellent, really excellent.

Dana K6JQ