Roger Tango,
Thanks for the PICAXE suggestion.
I had just starting looking at these, and I think these may be just the thing.
My logic is if I want to play PICS, let's get stuck in and do something... soon.
For my uses, a few milliseconds here and there would have no effect on any project I would consider, and as I don't envisage a production run, the extra cost would be totally insignificant as well.
STAMP technonology seems a bit expensive, though!
Bye for now