The AVR family of microcontrollers (mcu) is versatile, and able to be developed with very low-cost tools. The Arduino platform is built using them.
The Teensy USB development board is cross-platform supported, and directly re-programmable from a USB interface. There is a loader program for each of Mac, Ubuntu, XP & Win7 which must be downloaded. (Only copied, not installed.)
- To compile new programs on the Mac, download and install the CrossPack for AVR Development toolchain. (GNU compiler suite, a C library & etc. Its compliler is used from a terminal.)
- The tools are installed at
/usr/local/CrossPack-AVR. - Associated local documentation is put here.
- This section in the local documentation shows how to use Xcode as an editor with the AVR tool-chain for compiling.
- The Teensy website has a program to listen to the board via USB (for troubleshooting by print statements).