I haven't gotten start with microcontrollers yet, still shopping. Started looking at the AVRs last week, and got a little interested. There are 118 opcodes, opposed to the PIC's 32. Compilers tend to waste a lot of memory, and I'm already familiar with assembly. I haven't been able to download the instruction set summary yet, but want to take a look. Also need to check into programmers, and what external components are need to use an AVR, compared to a PIC. The PIC's 32 opcodes doesn't sit too well, seems like I would spend a lot of time trying figure out how to get the functions I want out of it. But hey, there is plenty of room for code, and a compiler would do most of the work (joking of course).