I'm an electronics hobbiest looking to dive into the ucontroller world. I'm trying to decide what platform to use for a project that needs more i/o than the simple pics (need two 8 bit ports for d/a). I've read the faq and such, but I'm still not clear on one subject - can the eeprom flash 8051 derivatives be used as a "single chip" controller (minus crystal, etc.)? I am thinking some of the Atmel chips...

Thanks in advance for any help with my newbie question.

Tom