On Fri, 2 Oct 2009 07:37:06 +0200, "Vis Naicker" said: > Bah! I am still excluded - in South Africa. > For my hobby stuff I would rather have an option of being economical with > postage and pay for the chips. My experience with mailing packages to/from South Africa was that economical methods of mailing were quite unreliable, almost a third of the packages never arrive. This causes many different types of problems for retailers. I expect Microchip wants packages to arrive and only the more expensive options work for them. Maybe it costs more than they are willing to pay to deliver samples so they make the customer pay. South Africa is a serious enough market, I doubt they are merely being snooty. Cheerful regards, Bob -- http://www.fastmail.fm - The professional email service -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist