Not managed to get a response from wunch:( so I'm still looking to find one that someone will sell. Are these things rarer than I thought?

The following is the thought process that led me to this site combined with discussions with my supervisor and a couple of other students. Realistically a cheap option for the department would be to buy 10-15 of the same type of device. Currently we share a single board SP601 between 4 of us for practical elements of the course:

http://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/EK-S6-SP601-G-image.htm

The only thing that it offers extra is an ethernet connection over one of these bitcoin mining boards

Latest sale that I found on ebay values a Cairnsmore1 at around £50-£60:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FPGA-Bitcoin-mining-rig-5x-Enterpoint-Cairnsmore1-miners-4-1GH-s-btc-miner-/281273958864

There's an ad valuing a ZTEX 1.15y at £100ea, but no bids on that:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-ZTEX-1-15y-FPGA-Quad-board-800Mh-SHA256-Coin-miner-/161237115709

This probably gives an open market value of about £30 ea for Icarus and Lancelot boards as they have 2 rather than 4 Spartan fpgas?

Clearly the components are worth more than this, however, recycling bga components is close to being a waste of time. In addition, because the software to develop on the Spartan 6 150 is so expensive the demand should be pretty small for these boards. As I'm at a university I have use of their software licences on their systems.

This all assumes that no-one comes up with an alternative commercial use for loads of fpga boards that have been retired from bitcoin mining.

What do people do with them? Are they genuinely obsolete? Or are there any other uses that people put them to? Where do they go?

In particular, I'm looking to buy one for a project from someone in the UK:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=504695.0

Any help or guidance is appreciated.

I'm a student, and trying to learn a bit more about fpgas, and struggling with the idea of buying a full development kit. I am based in the Uk (Cambridge - Anglia Ruskin University), and hence expect it to be more likely that a Cairnsmore1 miner is available in the UK (as that is where they were made) and I'd rather the money spent was on the item, than on P&P from the States or somewhere else ridiculous!

It was suggested that I try advertising here as a friend said that Cairnsmore1s were obsolete?, and the available documentation on them seems to be quite comprehensive:

http://www.enterpoint.co.uk/cairnsmore/cairnsmore1.html

It has lights/switches, and input/output connections of various types, a thermistor, and JTAG to investigate and explore so seems pretty much perfect as a mechanism to get started. The additional plus is that the board also has a Spartan 3E on it, giving me exposure to 2 different fpga series.

Other systems that looked sensible were an Icarus system and a Lancelot system, although the documentation relating to them was much poorer than for the Cainsmore1. Alternative suggestions also welcome.

If any UK people are trying to sell one of these (or something similar), or knows where I could get something like this fairly cheaply, then I'd be grateful if they could contact me.

Thankyou all in advance for any guidance (especially with other people's experiences of programming this device), suggestions or offers.