I generally use ESP32 nowadays, since most things I do benefit from having WiFi connectivity, but I have fond memories of using AVR microcontrollers in the past

I generally use ESP32 nowadays, since most things I do benefit from having WiFi connectivity, but I have fond memories of using AVR microcontrollers in the past. For hobbyists, AVR (ATmega, ATtiny) microcontrollers were really great. Easy to use in C for most cases, great cross-platform toolchain, and many of them came as DIP package, which made them breadboard/protoboard friendly. Heck, we even had a USB 1.1 library, that could bitbang USB 1.1 on practically any AVR, including 8-pin ATtiny: https://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html https://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html Not to mention, that Arduino started with ATmega, and still have many board featuring it. I definitely might check Dx line, just to see if the experience is the same as it was before.