Very, very basic question

[falcon60]

I am a complete electronics amateur but have developed a real interest recently and want to pursue it. As part of my other hobby, flight simming, I am working on a project that consists of producing a keystroke with a toggle switch (see my other post in the Circuits Questions thread). My question is this: is it possible to program an inexpensive microcontroller to convert a power input, ie from a toggle switch, to a keystroke? I'm sure it is, I've seen commercially available emulators, but I want to learn how to do this myself. Where would be a good place to start? What kind of microcontroller would I need to get started or, at least, to experiment with? Are there any beginners books/tutorials available? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[(*steve*)]

The short answer is yes, but how about we keep to just a single thread about your project.

Look at the PICAXE microcontrollers. Easy and cheap to program.

 

[falcon60]

Ok. Understand...guess I thought it was really two separate questions. Thanks for the link to Picaxe...looks like they've got some starter sets.

 

[(*steve*)]

The issue is that it is 2 different solutions to the same problem. It's best you keep the one problem in the one thread.

 

[falcon60]

Understand. Np. I'll stick to the other post for now.