If you haven't seen TIs msp430 Development tool, it's pretty cool.
For $20
you can get thumb drive sized programmer and mirocrontroller breakout
board. They put the microcontroller on a separate board that is
easy to remove, which means you can use the programmer to program other
2012 target boards, which you can get three of for $10. Plus you
can use IARs free C compiler to write code.
So far I have written code to drive a 7 segment display but more will follow.