> help poor not so old post-communist fellow understand
> these notorious capitalist free-market rules, please.
>
>    When I ordered PICs for my project, the only reason
> in favour of Microchip instead of Texas & Atmel was
> James Newton's "PICLIST". I decided to overpay few $
> for each chip compared to MSP430 & AVR in order to
> get in "PICLIST" community and thus save some time
> developing my project.
>    Now I'm looking for PCB maker. As I see from many
> postings I'm not alone in my humble wish. I've seached
> the Net and found a lot of references in the Taiwan region -
> price is critical. (I've posted this earlier). It seems to be
> a risky way to use a random reference.
> Lyle Killough in his posting
>    "[EE]: small production run PCB assembly blues"
> confirmed the doubt. Thanks to him.
>    And at the same time I looked at Microchip's
> "WORLDWIDE SALES AND SERVICE" and have
> found 10 Microchip representatives in the region
> and even in the same towns.
>
>    So my question is: Is there any way to force slightly
> Microchip and its representatives to PICk out some
> PCB manufacture and guarantee a litle his decency.