A500 with Vampire 2 on Ebay!!!

[guest11527]

I think you're over playing the mask rom and state machine in the 68000 to build a straw man.

Yes. So was Iggy.  

Obviously a 68000 isn't an emulator as it's the real thing and to emulate something you have to try to appear to be something else.

It appears to be a 68K outside, but inside it's all an interpreter running microcode on an entirely different machine. (-:

Yes, of course it is a bogus argument. In the end, what matters is the performance and consistence of the machine.  

An FPGA programmed to appear to be a 68000, is an emulation. The vampire could also be programmed to emulate a c64 or pc if you put the effort in.

I wouldn't say so. It would be an emulation if it would run as code on a different type of CPU platform, which it does not. It runs on programmed gates in an FPGA. Same as the 68K: It does not run natively on silicon. It runs as microcode on a machine we do not know exactly.

It's really a strange kind of argument - where do you want to draw the line? What is "real" and what is "emulation?". Is the 68060 an emulation of the 68000 because the former does *not* implement the same microcode engine as the 68000?

I tell you what I think: It doesn't really matter. As long as the resulting chip is fast enough to execute my code, and consistent enough, I don't bother. "Consistent enough" means that it avoids one particular problem typical emulators have: Executing some parts of the target architecture blazingly fast, while crawling at other tasks.

That's why I don't like winuae (comparably slow and inconsistent at the chipset emulation).

[Iggy]

...It doesn't really matter...

Thanks Thomas, as the owner of an Altera DE-1, I'd tend to agree with you.
Its a moot point. But we are talking microcode here, not dedicated silicon. Code guys, not some how magically "becoming a 68000".

[Acill]

An FPGA is a programmable logic array and i set to be a 68k. Its not emulation. Its a bit more complicated than that. The way they work though is all in hardware and native for the most part once you program all the logic gates as if they were the real CPU.

[QuikSanz]

I think you're over playing the mask rom and state machine in the 68000 to build a straw man.

Obviously a 68000 isn't an emulator as it's the real thing and to emulate something you have to try to appear to be something else.

An FPGA programmed to appear to be a 68000, is an emulation. The vampire could also be programmed to emulate a c64 or pc if you put the effort in.

You might think that Vampire is great and winuae is %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!, but both are emulators. They are just different types of emulators. Deal with it.

Hmm, What would you call it if it was an ASIC chip? still emulated?

[Iggy]

Hmm, What would you call it if it was an ASIC chip? still emulated?

No, UNLESS it was created via a similar method as the coding used to operate an FPGA, which DOES NOT directly emulate 68K hardware.
Then again, we're back to Thomas' "moot point".

[QuikSanz]

No, UNLESS it was created via a similar method as the coding used to operate an FPGA, which DOES NOT directly emulate 68K hardware.
Then again, we're back to Thomas' "moot point".

If it can cold boot a game floppy I'm good!

[trekiej]

If it can cold boot a game floppy I'm good!

I Agree with this one.

[Iggy]

I Agree with this one.

As do I, its not an important distinction.
It passes something similar to the Turing test, it appears real enough to be convince anyone using it.

[klx300r]

I am in Thunder Bay, not north Bay, there is also someone selling their v600 board. Once they receive their order we cannot prevent the resale of it, if people want to take the opportunity to try to make extra cash then it is up to them to face the wrath of the forum boards

looks like you guys need some NDA'S signed for beta-testers:rtfm:
& sorry for confusing the Bays:biglaugh:

[paul1981]

Anyway, isn't it the new 68080? You can't emulate something that doesn't already exist.

[majsta]

When I remember how much I was struggling with parts, designs and how much time is spend to see this working it makes me sad to see things like this:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Amiga-600-Vampire-600-V2-with-128-MB-of-RAM-/262612824686?hash=item3d24f1b26e:g:354AAOSwdIFXz1pU

But, those are things you can't stop and anyway money earns not the one who worked hard. Instead money always goes to someone else. But as I said money is not the point in Vampire project. Or is it? Right now I m struggling to finance V1200 project, in fact right now I m struggling to finance any future projects. It is doable but on the edge because my bitcoin stock. All of this makes me wonder did I calculated everything right. With just few sales like this one I could finance connectors or anything I want. Instead of that I need to solder 6-7 cards who are sold together at the same value as this one but with zero profit, in fact not zero but with total losses. Don't ask me how I get bunch of FPGA at lower prices, because it was pure luck and that's why I was able to sell cards at 90Eur, played fair. Now I m wondering what is kipper2k doing, man is in constant loses also unable to finance future development. How much BigGun and ceiach earned also zero, at least I was able to buy myself oscilloscope from the money left, also I got one as a present like bunch of other stuff. But to the point where tooling fees for connectors are in 4K USD range + price of the connectors I start to wonder where I made mistake. For sure there will be version of V500 who will be sold only on ebay and money earned will be used in future development's. That is the only way and my stock of cheap FPGA is nearly gone. I m an idiot, instead of selling cards and finance things with the profit I gave bunch of them for free, not even for 90Eur, yes you read it right I was giving away some cards for free for various reasons...

[kipper2k]

Just to add some more to the previous post.  When we started to do the BOM for the Vampire 2, we wanted to make this as affordable to the masses as we could, Majsta spent a lot of time trying to find the best components that were available at the time of initial design. This was also at a time when the $USD was at a lower value, it has since climbed over 25% and reduced the profit to almost minimal, add to that failed boards/components and we really did underestimate the cost. Initial preorders on Amibay were offered and honoured at 120 euro so he has lost money.

  As a result the talk on forums has constantly been slamming us for the slow production rates, deservedly so  because of our desire to make an affordable value product for people. This has meant a lot of manual labour for us to try to catch up and orders are actually still coming in faster than we can get out. Prices of FPGA's have also increased and so have other associated costs.

 For me, I need the payment from the current batch in order to pay for the parts to complete that batch which does not help the cause.  The reasons for batches are simple, we need to fund small batches and in the event of a bad batch we are not hurting (too) bad.

 My thoughts on buying a vampire for profit:  I do not like profiteering, it is preying on the desparation of people who want to have one at any costs. If someone does a deliberate profiteering on items i sell then i will not sell anything to them in the future if i find out who it is. I think most people are of the same opinion.

 Enough rambling.  byeee

[tribz]

You must have a good idea who it is considering they also had an A500 vampire also ... they're cant be many of them.

I'm in line somewhere (near the end!) to buy one so as an end user, its somewhat annoying to see someone buying to profit. It must be doubly so if you've lost money making them.

[Pgovotsos]

Majsta and kipper2k did you investigate options where the boards were partially or completely assembled at a factory? Between the low price and labor, you're losing money and probably sanity. There's no time for life and no enjoyment in what you're doing.

From what I've seen of small run products, it shouldn't cost you too much more and it would free you to do other things, enjoy life, earn a decent profit.

If another unnamed company is able to sell much lower performing boards for much more than you're charging for a much more capable board, you're doing it wrong.

The price that you're charging for the Vampire is ridiculous - ridiculously low. You haven't costed your bill of materials, labor or shipping correctly. The Vampire should cost minimum $300 US and probably more.

People see the performance of the Vampire. They see that it makes an Amiga faster than at any time in its history - by orders of magnitude. With everything that the Vampire provides - stellar performance, lots of very fast memory, fast SD storage, and video performance that every Amigan drools over.

I honestly don't think you would have any problems selling for $300 - $400. Heck, I think you'd sell out several production runs at $500. This would let you have the boards manufactured by a commercial assembler, yield would definitely improve, quality would improve with commercial pick and place and reflow, and factory tested. The only labor you would have is programming and shipping. Charge what it's really worth, what covers the COMPLETE costs plus 50% minimum. Charge more than that, whatever the market will bear! You should be charging more and profiting more than that other company. They've kept the classic machines alive and the community is very grateful to them for it but you are taking the Amiga into the future!

Life would be better for you, customers would be MUCH happier with wait times reduced and quality improvements, and more importantly you'd be able to focus on the more important tasks of development and MAKE MORE MONEY.

Sure,this started as a labor of love but how much love are you feeling right now? This needs to be a business that moves product and makes money! It needs to move on from the hobbyist stage as soon as possible.

[NorthWay]

Shouldn't this be a hint that the Amiga market is not as price sensitive as the Apollo team seems to believe?

You can jack up the component costs, the manufacturing costs, and the profits and still sell in spades. IMO.

[spaceman88]

Maybe Kipper2K and Majsta should put 1 or 2 on EBay every month to increase cash flow and do a small increase in price for the rest of us who don't have $800 to spend on retro computing.