How can i get started to learn any ARM core having a knowledge of 8051?

I searched thousands of time for the same but could't found the actual source from where i can start with. my sir suggested that you need a development board to get started but its cost is too much..
ins't there is other way i can do so as i learned 8051 from Mazidi book. and i have ARM cortex M3 book in pdf version..

how can i be able to do some simple projects after reading some material about ARM .. pleeeeeease reply,,,

ST has a board to evaluate their ARM Cortex processor and its 12-15 $ US maybe a good start. It has debugging facilities and there is a free C-compiler . I dont think thats a good price ...

I think you just asked the question in the right time. Texas Instrument's new launchpad will be available soon and it's a very good start for ARMs since it has the programmer itself onboard. The board costs only 5$ now (but watch out limited time only). It's a Cortex M4 but basically it's almost the same.

Link: http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad_site/stella...stellaris-launchpad&HQS=stellaris-launchpad-b

And the best start in my opinion is to try it out. First, if you don't want to spend even a buck on it, you can download CoIDE, a free ARM development IDE from www.coocox.org and play around a bit, with writing a code (I'm not sure if you can simulate it without a board but try it). But you can check all the given function libraries and example codes.

I think it's a good start.

Have a nice day and I hope this helps!