I originally had the eagle files on the website but ran out of room. A zip file containing the eagle schematic and board files for the 5804 is attached. Each board has it's merits. The 5804 is the simplest with half stepping and that is it's stong point, the discrete will drive the most current and is simple. If you want one of the other boards just post and I'll attach em. The only exception is the 3977 board, I'm a little more judicious with that one because of the level of difficulty. Before your start down the pic route, look at AVR's by Atmel.
www.atmel.com Very popular, cheap, easy to get, some free tools including a free basic complier for less than 2K of code, easy to program. Do a google search on avr and you'll see there is a ton of info out there on them. The go as small as an 8 pin package to very BIG. On board 10bit adc's on many of them, all esquared and flash memory.
Phil