Problem With V71 Microchip order: Why these boards are important!

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The attached screen shot is of a message that I just received from Microchip.

The order was placed Thursday night and acknowledged Friday morning.  I'm hoping it was just a case that it did not progress through shipping because its a Friday in the middle of vacation season.  It would really suck to find out that the 20 boards that were "in Stock" were not really there.  I just checked Microchip website and they now show 26 boards in stock.  This makes me hopeful.

The reason that we need these boards is to develop the code base.  It is a nightmare to develop software on a newly designed board.  Because if something does not work, you don't know if it is a software bug or a hardware bug (or both).  Also the boards that we will be developing (like the WISP) will be specialized and have limited access for debugging.  

Also this is my first time using modern debugging tools that connect via JTAG headers.  Last time I used tools like this was the 1990s.  Ive been using Arduino since then.  It would be good to gain  proficiency of these tools on a known good board.  

Another issue is that these modern devices support many different debug options. Wisely, these evaluation boards support most (if not all) the options.  There are 2 pin options, 6 pin JTAG, multiple different 10 pin options, 20 pin and an embedded option which I'm still trying to understand.  The different options provide different ways to trace through code, different ways to implement break points, some allow breaking when a memory value is changed.  Some options are for Flash programming only.  There are so many choices -- I need to become familiar with them to see which is best for our needs.  Lion and tigers and Bears -- oh my!.

Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/problem-with-v71-85142322