AVR-Chat

> Is there a reasonably useful windows-based C compiler for little or
> no cost?  I am rusty with C but I much prefer it to basic! 

Yes, WINAVR. Is a self-contained windows port of GCC for the AVR. You 
can find it
at http://winavr.sourceforge.net/.

> Are all the programmers the same, or do some give extra
> functionality and are worth the extra cost?  WHat is a reasonably
> good, low cost one?

I personally have used the AVRISP from Atmel.  It is $29 from Digikey 
and works well. There is a member
of this group who sells a JTAG ICE interface which is not much more 
expensive then the AVRISP and would
provide debugging ability. (http://www.ecrostech.com/) But at first, I 
would say that the AVRISP is all you really
need. It works with Avrdude which is the open source programmer which 
comes with WINAVR.

> As you can see, this has to be done on a real budget!!!!

AVRISP $29.00 + Mavric II $99 (Assembled and Tested) has you into a working
AVR environment for about $130 bucks.

-jr