🚀 go-pugleaf

> The Z-80 and the ubiquitous 6502 are available for just a couple of
> dollars and are quite easy to assemble into simple systems.  There
> are a lot of books tageted at the two aforementioned chips.  The
> 65C02 is nice to work with because the desing is fully static and
> does not have any maximum durations on clock states.

My personal favorite is the Motorola 6803.  It is a very simple processor,
but includes goodies like a serial port (handy for downloading code to the
board during debug), a timer, and 256 bytes of RAM.  The 68701 is an EPROM
version of the 6801 (similar to the 6803 but with masked ROM).  It is a
nice way to get a low chip count--has 2k of EPROM.

Finally, the 6802 is similar to the 01/03/701, but has no serial port or
timer.

Although these MCU's are rather slow (1.25MHz max--I've never tried pushing
them), they are easy and fun to use.  I use them now in lots of projects,
and I have Z-80 and 6500 series stuff lying unused.

If you want additional info., get in touch.  I will supply schematics
for a simple 6803 system to you or anyone interested--even though you
will learn a lot figuring it out yourself!!

Good luck,

Paul