Why do I ask? Because Ive been away from microcontrollers for a few years and just dont know what is current or popular these days.
My favorite architecture is the MCS-51
But to get up to speed, a person needs SW development tools, some hardware to program the uC, and a proto board.
Are there kits that will do some schematic capture and simulation around the uC, so that a person could quickly throw a design out, test it, then get circuit boards made?
Right now Ive got limited design tools, one from Intel thats machine code level, a Keil C compiler eval CD, but must use wire wrap to build a proto system, connect a logic analyzer, fill an eprom with machine code, and see what happens. There has to be a better way.