Just got the basic kit — was on sale for $49.99 with free shipping, so why not.
So far so good. Installed their app on my NetBook within the WinXP partition. There is an unsupported editor for Ubuntu, but haven’t gone down that path.
Created a very basic program that has the microcontroller send a message to the computer’s screen.
Had to get the USB attachment to be able to connect to the NetBooks USB.
The web-site is really informative (www.parallax.com).
Objective, over time, is to head into Robotics, but this is a great tool for learning the basic elements of electronics, which goes towards understanding Ham Radio Principles.