oops. I just noticed: pick Fast and fit with a 12MHz clock. WRONG suggestion. (you'll land with a 4-12MIPS board with all the speeds far away from intended.) To get these to work at standard 1MIPS, you need a clock SLOWER than 12MHz. (though I'm not sure how that infulences RS232 timings)

Another good idea (not quite cheap though) is getting a development board. You get all the software and hardware to start working right away, no phase of fear, doubt and uncertainity between buying the chip and uploading your first program.