Is Everyday Practical Electronics magazine useful for the Amiga enthusiast who uses Arduino-like boards and a soldering iron to create projects. For example would the magazine give you an advanced project equivalent to 6 LED's flashing different colours in the shape of a hexagonal gemstone when different frequencies are played in a Music program like ProTracker. Would Everyday Practical Electronics be useful for A-Eon's X1000 Xorro Project Board? Thanks. :p
Electronics can be kind of a trap if you don't know what you are getting yourself into. It is expensive, takes a long time and there is a steep learning curve. A datasheet for a microcontroller can be 250 pages or more long and the information is written by engineers for engineers. The reason you can't call one of these chip makers on the phone and talk to one of their engineers is because it costs money. There is also a different price tag for software to design your own circuit boards.
The other issue is that no one is really going to teach you anything unless you take a course. I've been on Arduino boards and they won't teach because they say they have taught themselves and they won't do your homework.
Ask yourself, "What do I need to learn about Microcontrollers and how will I know it?"
Other people are going to ask you, "What do you want to do?" I have a junk box of electronics and several unused microcontrollers because people suggested the wrong chip. Instead of asking you to find the correct part, they may try to help you do the impossible with the wrong chip or the wrong part.
I seem to think you need to price a modern day oscilloscope, software to make printed circuit boards, a surface mount soldering station, and logic / debugging tools. I don't think it can be done for less than $1,000. And trainer boards can cost any amounts.
The thing about Arduino is that you are playing with wiring and a bootloader with some java wrapping. In other words, if you programmed the Commodore 64 in BASIC, you haven't learned Machine Language and you haven't learned to build your own computer. It is more complicated but people love Arduino because they can do some wiring, get some code to cut and paste and they think they have arrived. It might get your hands wet and you might learn some basics but you don't really have a good part selection or understanding of electronics.
So let me ask you: What topics do you need to master to learn Microcontrollers?
The answer I got was here:
http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Microcontroller_topics_to_master