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Lately I've had the desire to play with PICs.


lol.

Can't think of anything worse to play with (PIC)! There's plenty of ARM7 based devices/prototype boards out there that will be a million times easier, less frustrating and more gratifying to play with!

Why hobbyists still persist with PIC's/AVR's is beyond me!

Quite probably because a) the market isn't as flooded with as many ARM7 resources, as there are PIC resources (I've been interested in PIC programming for the last couple years -- this is the first I've heard of using ARM7 as an alternative), and b) it seems overkill for a lot of very simple projects. Furthermore, as a hobbiest, I'd find the task of soldering an ARM7 onto a board (40 legs!) to be much more daunting than soldering a PIC onto a board.

So, supposing I were to take your advice, do you have any suggested resources that I should start with? (Including where I might find a low-cost programmer?)

My first project (which I've been putting off for *ages*) is to get something to convert my steering wheel control signals into a serial port stream to control the Empeg. How would using an ARM7 processor be simpler than using a PIC?

Cheers,