Bullshit, that’s what it is. They targeted the “Launchpad” toward the maker/hacker market and yet they don’t provide the according payment methods, these corporate weasels will only take your credit card, tell me how many students actually own a credit card? only the rich kids, who are probably more interested in getting more free money from their parents and living la vida loca than spending their time hacking away on a TI development board alone in their basement.
It just makes no sense whatsoever! they’re trying to get a piece of this huge market by introducing a ridiculously cheap product and yet theres no way anyone outside the US without a CC would be able to get one!.
Therefore TI’s product is as appealing to me as sucking a rusty nail while watching a match of cricket under severe chronic depression! It’s going to end one way and it won’t be pretty.
The worst part is the fact that once you’ve got the kit and you want more ICs, you’d expect them to be cheap but they really aren’t, unless you’re buying bulk that is! — Do you know any student who buys bulk quantities of ICs (10.000 units) ? I didn’t think so, unless they’re running a meth lab.
Well TI, heres a launchpad you can use to launch this lie out of orbit! But wait, you’ll need a CC to use it.
At least I know they won’t be making a profit out of this and due to the fact that they didn’t try to compete directly with the Arduino, they won’t be doing well since it’s an established, properly supported product with a plethora of options to choose from. TI’s Launchpad just isn’t.
So yeah, there you go.
And by the way, I’m not an Arduino fanboy. In fact PICs are pretty much the norm here in Argentina (not a fan either) so I’m in no way biased, this is just my point of view. Hopefully other weasels will start reselling them on eBay, giving us a chance to give it a try…
Remember: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t.
i dont see why you cant ask someone to buy it for you
in the us most people has at least one creditcard!
just my two cents
I agree, but this is not the case, specially in third world countries (like Argentina, which is where I’m from)
You may be able to ask someone to buy it for you, but then again why are there local distributors if they aren’t going to distribute these products at all? It defeats the purpose entirely.
And I must say, so far I’m not impressed by their solutions.
To me it all comes down to the real cost and availability of the product, other features are not exactly a priority most of the time.
Then you would have to have a big community and support system, should I encounter a problem I want good software and people to help me out… This is true with AVR and PICs, I don’t know about TI’s product.
Just my view.
HI Gushh,
I know this is super out dated, but I came across this when I was looking for unique LaunchPad logos.
You were absolutely right when you posted this in 2010 and we’ve worked out a lot of kinks and now the ti EStore will let you use PayPal (if you didn’t have a credit card).
For students have donations that we send to the local IEEE branch if the branch contacts the University Program at univ@ti.com.
Hopefully we’ve helped fix this (although way later).
-Larissa
TI University Manager- Microcontrollers
LariSan #43oh
Hi Larissa, Thanks for letting me know!
One of the primary sources of visitors for my site happens to be ti.com, thanks to the LaunchPad Wiki and the great community over there and 43oh as well (not a fan of the forums but the IRC channel is neat and provides great support).
Although I’m not primarily devoted to micro-controllers, it is indeed one of my interests. Like most people, I often let the steam out through my blog, but I also try to help whenever I can, so hopefully most of it is constructive!
May I ask, why were you looking for unique LaunchPad logos? (I know you’ve found my parody logo, but is TI looking for a new logo?)
At the time we were all angry at the delays and how the company never answered to our inquiries (Harte-Hanks) but after a few months it all seemed to be sorted out; at least everyone I know got their LaunchPads.
Clearly, we couldn’t wait 🙂
Thanks again for the heads-up and I’m glad other payment systems are available now, as it were a lot of people were not able to acquire their LPs.
Cheers!