Apparently via Google you found a good explanation of the Dev Kit.

Gee, maybe the Microsoft Web pages should have given the links you found!

Yes, eventually I did do a Google search. I found a little information, better than the Microsoft Web pages.

But a "device"? What was meant by a "device"? My life, my work in computing, my work for my startup, are all awash in various devices. Heck, my kitchen has a lot of "devices". So does my car. I have a sack of gorgeous Nikon camera equipment, all "devices".

Somewhere some description needs to get simpler, down to the level of the Common Man in the Street, to the 6th grade, with an introductory explanation: I've done a LOT in computing and still am doing so, but a "device" is just too vague to be meaningful. People for whom that jargon is meaningful have a background I am missing. For my current work, I have no need for that background.

The Microsoft Web pages kept promising to tell me what was in the kit, product, offering, box, unit, device, whatever. Sooo, I kept clicking, thinking that maybe I just missed the Web page that actually explained what the Dev Kit was.

So, the "Dev Kit", the thing Microsoft was talking about, is a COMPUTER, complete with a DC power supply, central processor, main memory, solid state memory for a file system, ports, maybe some version of USB (Intel's universal serial bus) for connecting a keyboard, a mouse, and one or more video displays, an operating system, and some software tools from Microsoft, and for most of this still I have no actual source and am just guessing. NONE of that was at all clear.

My interest was as a founder of a startup, a Web site, and the programmer of that Web site. I've done the programming using Microsoft's .NET software and their SQL Server. And I wrote the code on Windows XL and then Windows 7.

That was a long time ago -- I got delayed by some unpredictable, independent, unfortunate outside events. But now I'm returning and trying to rush to going on-line as a Web site available to everyone on the Internet.

Early in the work, I got from Microsoft a version of SQL Server for free. What I wanted to know a few days ago from the "Dev Kit" was, is a free (developer) version of SQL Server still available? What other versions of SQL Server are available? Should I consider converting to PostgreSQL? What other Microsoft software is available? Eventually it became clear that somehow whatever the Dev Kit was, it was not really for people developing a Web site.

Soooo, maybe somewhere there is a little company developing and selling software to help, say, a pizza shop. The little company writes the software using .NET. Some of the pizza shop customers are using computers with ARM processors instead of x86 processors and some version of Unix instead of Windows. So, the Dev Kit is aimed at software developers in such companies. Okay. Microsoft never made any of this at all clear, but eventually, okay, now it's clear.

This Dev Kit is not for me. Now I understand this.

Then I did another Google search and got a good, clear, surprisingly nice explanation for my question about SQL Server:

At

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-downlo...

I saw

SQL Server 2019 Express is a free
edition of SQL Server, ideal for
development and production for
desktop, web, and small server
applications.

Sure, I'd still like to know what $ I'm in for if my startup is successful and I need a non toy version of SQL Server? Ah, getting information like that is asking for too much!

But some such information is available sometimes!!! Last month I finally found a path to some serious people at my ISP, Comcast, about what they could do for me when I bring my Web site live! Most of their answers were good, clear, and more favorable than I had guessed.

So, sometimes in business it's actually IS possible to get some clear information!!!!

It appears to me that in the last year or so Microsoft has made good progress in the main, foundational challenge -- describing their work. Before, long it appeared that getting such information was not like pulling teeth from lions but pulling tusks from elephants.

"Device": Whoever at Microsoft described the Dev Kit as a "device" needs some serious counseling.

In my first use of SQL Server, I had no problems designing the database, understanding "normal forms", but spent a solid week trying to get a "connection string" to work. Finally I sent to Microsoft so much in email and phone calls that I got to apparently some mid-level executive in the SQL Server organization who told me right away how to get a connection string. WOW, only a week wasted!!!!