Which development board do you suggest me for a beginner

Hi Maxi,

There are several good options:

The Arduino Uno is a good C language based entry level platform, with lots of community support out there.

The Basic Stamp by Parralax is an easy to learn Basic language based platform, perhaps not quite as powerful as the others.

TheTI MSP430 Launchpad is very inexpensive, but has a little steeper learning curve.

I love the propeller... Started with the basic stamp from parallax which is great for being easy but it's limitations come up fast... The propeller has been a blast!

-Arie

I'm interested in this as well, however, to make it more challenging, I need a board for students to use in a class.  The processor needs to be MIPS based to match the book.  There needs to be an available assembler so the students can program some pieces of assembly language.   It needs to have some "interesting" gadgets on the board the student can interface with.  The price needs to be reasonable for a student to pay (less than or equal to a text book).

I found a really great board, mikromedia for PIC 32 by MicroElectronika, which met all of the criteria.  Really neat graphics, reasonable price, etc.  Except, it needs a commercial compiler/assembler that runs $250 a copy, which is totally unreasonable for a student to buy and no student discounts (I asked).  I could jury rig it with MPLAB, but then we lose the graphics support and the setup becomes challenging for students.

Open to ideas.