Arrow will ship parts overnight with a minimum order size of $20.
Aliexpress/eBay have made discrete semiconductors and passive parts nearly free.
Writing a bit of software is incredibly easy (versus what it used to be) with a good IDE and a solid toolchain.
It's truly a great age to be involved in hardware.
But yeah, I've made MCU boards in my toaster oven, it's fun times for little non-RF projects.
The several gigabytes of stuff TI makes you install just to do hello world on their simple link products is kind of nuts though. There's nothing simple about it tbh.
This area is in much need of improvement. Keil ARM-MDK, IAR, ect. aren't cheap.
But yeah, I've made MCU boards in my toaster oven, it's fun times for little non-RF projects.
The several gigabytes of stuff TI makes you install just to do hello world on their simple link products is kind of nuts though. There's nothing simple about it tbh.