Question about Terasic fpga acedmic pricing

[nowlan]

Hello,
First post here.
Been lurking a couple of months, but decided to register.

I am currently studying ICT at university.
However, I have been interested in learning fpga for a long time.
Whenever I ask about fpga, im told they only teach dsp, so possibly asking wrong people.

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I was looking at terasic boards earlier.
Prices seem all over the place.

de0-nano
terasic web price: $79
terasic web academic: $59

adafruit $99.95
digikey.com.au $86.25
au.mouser.com $122.96
au.element14.com $115.66
ebay: $120us+$20

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Where do students buy for academic pricing?
Do all students order from the Terasic website?

I heard postage was expensive, so wanting to hear if any students knew better options, such as University bookshops or via lecturer/group buy etc.

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From terasic website:

Q: How can I purchase Altera DE2 board with academic price, $269?
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=16&No=197#q2

Australian distributor?
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=12&No=20#Australia
BRAEMAC Pty Ltd.

[Dongulus]

I don't understand the problem. The instructions at the Terasic website for academic purchases look straight forward. I clicked the "Agreement" button for the DE0-nano board and it added it to my cart. I didn't continue because I don't want to create an account and I'm not a student. Where are you lost?

The academic price offered directly from the manufacturer or some close business partner has always been the best deal for whatever I have looked at. I worked exclusively with Xilinx FPGAs in college and I bought my development boards from Digilent who also offered academic discounts. The academic price is a strategy both of these giants use in a competition for your favor. They take slim profit margins to try to get you used to their products and tools so that you become more inclined to design with their products later when you become a full-fledged engineer.

Take advantage of academic discounts while you can. Also, available for some software. I recommend eventually getting Matlab (for ~$100USD compared to >$10,000USD for a professional seed). Also, joining IEEE as a student gets you some free software from Microsoft ( look up MSDNAA ).