Issue 8 discussions...

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Dave
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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Dave »

As the first step in the serial driver, I forked Jan Bredenbeek's 6250 driver. My fork can be found here:

https://github.com/plasticuser/QL


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Dave
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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Dave »

I've made a decision.

Woo, I think.

I will be making an initial batch of 100 Issue 8s, regardless of demand. If they take a while to get sold, that's fine. If they sell quickly, and there's demand, I will kit for 100 more. Basically, ordering components at the 100x quantity reduces the price. It's a commitment on my part because it's going to tie up about $10,000 in components give or take.

Part of my reasoning is that I really want to jump on the next project after Issue 8 quickly, and instead of bringing you something "old" I want to bring you something "new" - but I don't want to talk about it at all as I don't want to Osborne myself :P The other part is that although this board will cost 4-5x more than the Q68 to produce (it's huge and has a LOT of parts - very Old Tech) I want the price on it to be much lower. It needs to be accessible and affordable as a repair or upgrade part for those that want it.

Also, again, a reminder that although I'm doing a lot of the talking, Nasta is at the heart of this project and it is for all practical purposes his design.

Now, I need to dig out that old thread on here about next gen QL expansion buses and read it as a refresher - because the machine after the Issue 8 is getting a completely new expansion bus.


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Peter
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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Peter »

Dave wrote:The other part is that although this board will cost 4-5x more than the Q68 to produce (it's huge and has a LOT of parts - very Old Tech) I want the price on it to be much lower.
I think Dave made a cost estimate what the Q68 would take him to produce. Dave is a parts purchasing expert with a lot of experience, connections, and even the possibility to resell parts in case he later won't need all of them. Also, Dave can do SMD production himself. Both is of course much cheaper than production in small batches with help of reliable commercial services.

The Q68 comes at a price of £150.00 which I remember similar to comparable retro-computing boards, although the Q68 sells in much lower quantities due to being QL-specific and QL-optimized, and has ethernet on board. The price was not my decision, but I seriously think the Q68 is at the lowest limit, compared to the risk and workload Derek has shouldered - purely as support for the QL community. Thank you very much Derek, and please do not feel like the Q68 costs too much.


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Cristian
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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Cristian »

Peter wrote:Thank you very much Derek, and please do not feel like the Q68 costs too much.
Let's proceed with caution: I don't think Dave was meaning this.
In any case, I'm sure all of us recognize the full worth of Derek's efforts.


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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Silvester »

Dave wrote:As the first step in the serial driver, I forked Jan Bredenbeek's 6250 (6850) driver. My fork can be found here:

https://github.com/plasticuser/QL
What device are you going to use, where in I/O area is it going to be addressed? (rough schematic)

What machine are you expecting to use it on - BBQL ? (max baud?). I wrote a driver for MIDI on TC QL with definable queues - it kept up easily with two ports at 31250 doing MIDI bulk dumps(*). Be interesting to see how BBQL would deal with Q40 sending at 115200.

To write a quick SER driver to have something to play immediately with would be quite straightforward, but long term it would best to match SMSQ/E drivers/SBASIC interface (STX etc).

(edit: * admittedly I was using level 5 interrupt)
Last edited by Silvester on Sat May 04, 2019 9:20 am, edited 1 time in total.


David
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Peter
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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Peter »

Cristian wrote:
Peter wrote:Thank you very much Derek, and please do not feel like the Q68 costs too much.
Let's proceed with caution: I don't think Dave was meaning this.
In any case, I'm sure all of us recognize the full worth of Derek's efforts.
I also do not think Dave means the Q68 is too expensive. But announcing to sell at a much lower price than Q68, while having 4-5x more costs, can sound like it. Therefore I wanted to clarify. I wish Dave the best of luck with his Issue 8 project, and hope to be among his customers.


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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

I would also be an issue 8 buyer, when it comes to the market.

Not see the countdown lately...

The production cost of the Q68 would lower if I made the Q68 in batches of 100.

I also think that the designer of any hardware should pass the constriction to someone with the construction skills to perform the task. This leaves the designer to get on with the design work.

In an ideal work, there should a third person to handle distribution and support for tbe production.

In the Q68 I handle construction, distribution, support and marketing. Though I have not advertised the Q68 yet.


Regards,

Derek
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dden
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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by dden »

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

I would also be an issue 8 buyer, when it comes to the market.

Not see the countdown lately...

The production cost of the Q68 would lower if I made the Q68 in batches of 100.

I also think that the designer of any hardware should pass the constriction to someone with the construction skills to perform the task. This leaves the designer to get on with the design work.

In an ideal work, there should a third person to handle distribution and support for tbe production.

In the Q68 I handle construction, distribution, support and marketing. Though I have not advertised the Q68 yet.
I am following this thread with interest. Do you mind telling us how many Q68s have been sold, and the batch quantities they are made in?

This may give Dave an idea of how many Issue 8 boards to produce.


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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi David,

With regards to your question:
dden wrote: I am following this thread with interest. Do you mind telling us how many Q68s have been sold, and the batch quantities they are made in?
I do not think I can publish this information, but everyone that showed interest in a Q68, purchased one.

The batch quanities were calculated based on the demand.
dden wrote: This may give Dave an idea of how many Issue 8 boards to produce.
I do not think this information would benefit the sales of an Issue 8 board, because not everyone is like me and has every version of QL hardware system.

I have also bought all emulation systems, including QPC2, when it was a paid registration and Q-emulator full registered version.

I like to try and support the software writers. Mind nearly software I have bought over the years is now free.


Regards,

Derek
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Re: Issue 8 discussions...

Post by Cristian »

dden wrote: Do you mind telling us how many Q68s have been sold,
This may give Dave an idea of how many Issue 8 boards to produce.
Mmmmm... sorry, but no. They are considerably different products with different targets. This information wouls not be very useful.


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