8051 microcontroller kit recommendation?

Question

I'm a first year Computer Science student looking to get started with development for micro-controllers. I'd like to use the 8051, as it's common as dirt, and is used frequently in the real world.

During my junior or senior year, I'll be taking a PIC micro-controller based embedded design class, so I'd rather not do PIC now; otherwise, I'll be fairly bored during that course.

Most commercial kits I see are for the AVR or PIC series of microprocessors. I'm just looking for something with decent development tools, documentation, and enough add-ons to keep my novice self occupied for the summer.

Any recommendations for an 8051 family kit? Thanks!

Answer 1

I asked pretty much the same question on a microcontroller forum. The original post is here. The recommendation is for the F340DK from silabs.com. I was looking at silabs because I had heard they had good kits. This runs about $70-$100 depending on where you get it.

Answer 2

Check out the MCUniversity ToolStick development kit from Silicon Labs:

http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/MCUniversity.aspx

Disclaimer: I work for Silicon Labs.

The kit and documentation are designed for people who are new to the 8051 and microcontrollers in general.

Answer 3

Mikroelektronika make some pretty cool boards...
Pretty feature-packed. Been using the PIC flavour and I love it.

The MikroC IDE is good, board has plenty of addons and features
What else could you need :D

Check out their 8051 devboard here http://www.mikroe.com/eng/products/view/329/easy8051-v6-development-system/