You may want to find an ST oriented forum to get answers to questions along the way. I’ve been using mostly TI products, so I can’t really help with a forum reference.

Best of luck in your studies.

The STM license looks like you could still do hobby stuff like most of us and post how-tos on the web. As long as you’re not selling the board as part of your system. I have a couple of STM8S Discovery boards that I bought when they were the cheapest/best development board (pre-LaunchPad). I’ll probably use them in a project somewhere and leave them there. I won’t be spending much time with them.

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