I am quite new to 8052s and microprocessors etc, so I am unfamilliar with all of this.

I would like to know if it would be possible, and fairly easy, to make a circuit with a simple 8051,xtal,caps etc, with switches for address lines and data lines connected to a block of NV SRAM or EEPROM so that you could write a program on the switches and run it. Would this be possible and how would I go about it? Also, how would programs be written, do I need a list of opcodes(from the tutorial) or what?

Rob.