I’m a capitalist and I’m okay
I work all night and I sleep all day

Well, I don’t work all night so much anymore. I used to.  I am a capitalist though. I think money is good (what some people do with it, not so much). And, I also think that when people make money, they should do so in such a way that others benefit as well. That’s one of the reasons I like Ti’s Beagleboard so much. Speaking of Ti, they have another microcontroller product that I’m excited about as well.

The MSP430 LaunchPad is a little development board designed for education in general, as well as familiarization with the MSP430 line of microcontrollers for experienced developers. (I hope they don’t mind that I’m using their picture. I don’t have one so I couldn’t take my own picture of it.)

A lot of companies have development boards for their chips. That’s nothing new. But what is really cool is that they have set a retail price for this of $4.30. Yes, the price of a 16 ounce latte.

Now I know that a latte is important. Some people have speculated that civilization would collapse without caffeine. But, here’s what you get in the place of that latte: (from the Ti website, again)

“For $4.30, the LaunchPad includes a development board, 2 programmable MSP430 microcontrollers, mini-USB cable, PCB connectors for expandability, external crystal for increased clock accuracy, and free & downloadable software integrated development environments (IDEs)”

Cool. I can explode one and still have another to finish the project with. I’m going to get me one of these and spend some time with it. I don’t have any personal experience with the MSPP430 line, so it will be filling it’s primary mission.

On the subject, I ran across an interesting website dedicated to the MSP430: www.43oh.com. If you’re already a 430er or are just intrigued by the chip, go check it out.

Duane Benson
Buttered scones, anyone?