^^ With similar curiosity - I have two questions only:

1. How much does a complete kit cost (i.e. board, heatsinks, necessary special cables, etc.)?

2. Can I run the mining software on a pool without needing to know VHDL or assembly-level code?

Actually, there's a third question. Assuming that this is an FPGA board, and from the hash rate you quote, it sounds like a fairly decent spec FPGA - how much does the software licence cost in order to load the BTC Miner gate logic onto the FPGA? I don't know much about this level of engineering, but have heard many stories about requiring proprietary software to load your own 'code' onto the FPGA itself, and that this proprietary software costs an absolute fortune.

I'm mining for the money (not that it's particularly profitable right now) so my mining rigs would be considered 'business' in court (indeed, the hardware was bought by the business I own). So using 'evaluation' or 'academic' licences would be fraudulent.

I'd love an FPGA setup (after seeing the number on the watt-meter attached to my Shelf Rig above) but I have a feeling that the FPGA-loading software costs 4 figures. And since I can't design my own gate-level logic, I wouldn't have any use for said software other than initially loading up the bitcoin mining logic.

Doing it for fun would be great - I'd like to purely to experience a new type of hardware and software - but I'd feel uneasy as hell about ripping off a software package worth thousands. I can't lie that I'm 'academic' or 'evaluation' if I'm actually making money using the damn thing...

(by the way, this is only my opinion, and not casting a judgement on anyone else here - prejudice isn't my style, especially when I have no information)