Hi Ricky,

I suggest Atmels 89C51 series. Its very cheap.

The big disadvantages of the PICs:
1.
Most are OTP, means if they programmed and working not, they are garbage.
On using the 89C51 you can overprogram it more than 10,000 times.
Also you can add RAM as program memory for download.

2.
A lot of different PIC derivates need separate assemble or compile. You can not burn the hex file into a different derivate.

3.
RAM and code are segmented.
All 8086 programmers knows, what segmentation is and hate it.


Comparing the price:
AT89C52 (8kB Flash, 256B RAM): 6$ at Segor a single piece
16F874 (7kB Flash, 192B RAM): 15$

If only MIPS importand for you (but often not) insert the DS89C420 (50MIPS). Its of course fully binary and pin compatible to the 8051 standard.


Peter