Robert, do some research, Ardunio is NOTHING like a Basic Stamp.

Arduino is to Atmel as the 16F84 was to MCHP in the mid 90's....Arduino has put Atmel on the map and top of the list.

By their own admission - and i spent a lot of time talking to them about it, MCHP lost ground because of this simple little development board Arduino.

Arduino is by far the most popular ucontroller development platform in the world today, because its open, low cost and takes leverage from the free tools in the Atmel community.

MCHP have lost a lot of developers to Atmel because of Arduino, thats fact, Marketeers in both camps agree on that.

Amicus18 and its clones, simply give PBP and other MCHP users an easy route to take advantage of the mass of development boards - called 'shields' - that support the Arduino. They are abundant and cheap.

Amicus18 was touted as the Arduino killer by some, its NOT. But is is a vaibale alternative for those PIC users that see whats available to the Atmel community and want the same for themselves.