I looked at the Amicus product by Crownhill and that is EXACTLY what I talking about. THIS is what could have taken Arduino on if the price and availability would have been better.
We had support for Amicus from Microchip (UK) on the marketing and I spent a crap load of money on the Amicus. What little interest there was has dropped off. I'm about to dump the lot.

Sad times, but even i've moved to Linux Single Board computers now. Ive done only 1 PIC based board in the last 12 months.

Lester