[Gb-ccb] The Xilinx Spartan 3 development board

[Martin Shepherd]

Unfortunately the Xilinx development board that I was planning to get,
is apparently obsolete and no longer made, despite still featuring on
avnet's web-site. It has been replaced by the ADS-XLX-SP3-EVL400,
which doesn't appear on their web-site, and apparently goes for $399
instead of $99. A couple of days ago I filled in a web-based order
form for the original part, and after filling in shipping and billing
information, instead of being sent to a secure page to enter my credit
card number, I was sent to a page that told me that my order would be
reviewed and that somebody would contact me. That didn't happen, so I
called by phone today.  The person that I talked to was very
unfriendly, and told me that of course I couldn't order these parts on
line (despite the existance of web links to do so), and that of course
the new part number wasn't on line, because things like that are too
specialized to appear on the web site. He then told me that he didn't
have any of the new boards in stock, and that if I wanted one I would
have to put in a special request to have one made. That would
apparently take 6 weeks, although he thought that maybe somebody had
already put in a special order, so maybe it could be sooner.

It looks like I'll have to search out a different board from a
different vendor. Unfortunately, I am about to go away on vacation...

Martin