8051 The 8051 ("MCS-51") is an 8 bit microcontroller architecture introduced by Intel back in the 70's. I don't know whether to laugh or cry that I'm still programming 8051 assembly.   Actually, I'm now using SDCC much more, although I still write interrupt code with assembly.  It's just so much easier to organize and read code with something approching C.

Creative Electronic Solutions

Unlike some (any?) other 8 bit micros, 8051/2 compatible processors are made by several different companies. Assemblers, compilers, debuggers, etc, etc, have been around forever.

About a year ago, I came across the Analog Devices version... they include good A-D converters in the part, and really sell the part as a A-D which includes a uC, not the other way around. In fact, many companies are starting to do this. ADI supplies a demo board and downloading software, all for use with Windows hosted systems.

Analog Device's ADuC processor is in-system programmable using only its on-board UART. This is good... you can program it using only a serial port. I started with Mark Hopkins' CAS assembler, now I use SDCC and and "make" to automate building 8051 code, using Linux as a host system. To make use of the ADuC's in-system programmability, I wrote a small utility that talks to the chips download protocol. Karl Hiramoto added control capability of Reset and Dload over serial control lines in v0.3. If you're interested, here's the code: