8051microcontroller
I picked up a book about the 8051 Microprocessor. It's probably a school book, but I found it for cheap. It has lab manuals and it's pretty large and looks like it'll be a good learning tool.
Obviously it's an older MP to be learning with, but according to others it's a "classic" and a good learning tool. But with that being said, how would I go about setting up a "demo" board. Anything special I need to know? Any suggestions?
Have a look at this: -
Pin 2 is shown as the input receive line to the PC and this means you connect this line to your 232 transmit output. At the moment your diagram shows it connected to your receive input.
I'm not saying it'll fix your "loopback" problem - that may be connected to this wiring error so try this first.
The power pins are hidden in Proteus schematic capture because they are automatically connected to the VCC and GND nets. You can change the nets they are connected to by editing the component's properties (right-click on component, choose 'Edit Properties', then 'Hidden Pins').
Best Answer
Chances are that you outgrow the 8051 after your first project, so I'd rather invest in a more performant development board with a more modern microcontroller. You'll also find a more active community around them, which as far as support goes is worth at least several books.
In the 8-bit arena the PIC is very popular due to the wide offering by Microchip.
But the most popular these days is Arduino, based on a performant AVR. There's a handful of Arduino development boards, which can be extended with boards for specific functions. Arduino uses its own programming language.
If you want to be safe for a long time performance-wise, the 32-bit ARM is the way to go. There's a great many manufacturers offering ARM controllers, ranging from very basic to complete SoCs. NXP is just one of them.
Probably one of the easiest ways to get started with ARM is mbed.