Before Amicus18, PIC users would look at the Arduino and typically post on forums:

I have recently ventured over to the dark side and experimented with the Atmel AVR micro-controllers, via the easy to use Arduino platform. It has some good points and a wide range of plug-in modules called shields, that provide a wide range of I/O. Seewww.arduino.cc for more details on Arduino and the Arduino shield list, http://shieldlist.org/


and now the same people are saying things like:

As a PIC micro developer for 15 years (yikes) I started to see if there was a project to use the wide range of Arduino shields. The most promising is the Amicus18 from Crownhill, see http://www.myamicus.co.uk/.

The hardware design is open and based on the Arduino Duemilanove design but with a PIC device.

Google Arduino and see just how much is going on in that community. Its massive. PBP users can take advantage of the low cost development boards and the plethora of projects and ideas, without having to build from scratch. Simply use the AMICUS18 hardware, and the low cost Arduino shields that plug right in.

Amicus18 is NOT some wonderful new design, it is NOT special, It is NOT even the best design.

Amicus18 is beautiful because it enables PBP users to take advantage of low cost Arduino hardware, thats all.

Its true that if you were to develop a platform from scratch you would probably NOT have developed the Amicus18, but when you consider the advantages of making something thats compatible with Arduino, you see that there is a good reason behind the AMICUS18 development platform....think about it!