Contaced a Factory in China about producing a run of fully populated Mini-migs

[Darrin]

Keep us informed on how you get on.  I'm certainly interested in 2 or three units for myself, so that might just leave you 49997 left to sell.   :-)

It's a shame this wasn't happening 2 years ago as I was working in Shekou.

[Darrin]

PM sent.  Let's get this ball rolling.   :-)

[Darrin]

Crom00 wrote:
Some delays. UK Postal strike slowed down assembly of our test unit.  Will advise further. Hope to decide on a factory and start on the first 10 units within the next couple of weeks. Finding someone that will do small numbers is a challenge.

I'm still hanging in here, waiting and hoping.  Good luck.   :-)

[Darrin]

Crom00 wrote:
If someone REALLY knows a factory in the US, Tawian, or wherever that they prefer and know that can handle this kind of work, send me the info. I have no problems swithcing factories if it makes sense.

The silence is deafening.   :-D

[Darrin]

Crom00 wrote:

Games like Cinemawares Basektball have issues since a save disk is required and the disc is write protected.

Other notes about the MiniM.

Uses Sega Genesis controllers quite well like an Amiga.

Using an off the shelf optical mouse and keyboard beats the Old school ball mouse anyday.

Some sprite issues in games like Lionheart.

Looks better on 4:3 VGA than  16:9 widescreen 22" monitor due to the stretched pixels. All games work without issues except where noted.

Thanks for that list and bug report.

I'm sure that the people with assembles Minimigs and the ability are already working on the ability to save data (and hopfully a hard drive file and possibly multiple floppy support).

Do you have "Menace"?  I loved that sidesways scroller and the music was great.  Please test it if you have it and let me know if it works.  Would "Xenon 2 - Megablast" work on OCS?

[Darrin]

Crom00 wrote:If all goes well in a short while some of you will develop the same problem LOL!

Hopefully in time for Xmas.   :-D

[Darrin]

whiteb wrote:

Dennis is adding Multiple ADF support, I know that for DEFINITE.

Thank you for letting me know that.  Great news.   :-D

[Darrin]

acidrain wrote:
Writing to an mmc card is not so hard, but there are problem with kickstart - it doesn't know abou mmc nothing. maybe there  is a way to code an driver for that purpose? But how to access mmc from amiga?

I didn't think that would be a problem.  I assumed that there was something in place to make the Amiga think that the ADF selected was a real floppy (df0), so it's not the "Amiga" side of the logic that's the problem, but rather the software that "emulates" a "floppy" on the MMC which needs to be expanded to support a write function.  Correct?   :-?

[Darrin]

alexh wrote:
If minimig hardware was available, it would be relatively easy to modify the FPGA and PIC code to emulate an IDE hard drive, (probably through a HDF file at first), just as it does now with a ADF image.

With lack of MiniMig hardware, there is no real incentive to develop for it.

Let's just keep our fingers crossed that Crom comes up trumps.

[Darrin]

The sad thing is, 1000 units is moveable, but who has a spare (for example) $50,000 - $100,000 to initiate the production run?

If the batch was smaller and in the $5,000 - $10,000 range and being produced by a trustworthy source, then I might be willing to chip in 10-20% of the production cost on the understanding that I get my money back when the boards are sold.

I'm sure a run of 100 produced and "advertised" via a slashdot article would produce enough interest to sell all of them on eBay using "buy-it-now" quite quickly.

[Darrin]

tonyyeb wrote:

Totally agree with that, but its all about the initial risk.

I'm willing to share the risk of the production run not selling out, but I'm not prepared to risk handing over $1000 or more and then having the person vanish without a trace.  I already have a $50 coupon for OS4/AmigaOne and an "IOU $50 off the price of an Amiga on a PCI card".

So, let's say a run of 100 boards was made and several people chipped in $1000 each for it to happen.  If only 50% of the boards sold then I could live with only getting $500 back and a Minimig board (with the possibility that some more might be repaid over time of the remaining stock sold).

[Darrin]

HenryCase wrote:
@Crom00
Two questions:
1. What quotes have you had for 1000+ production runs?
2. Would subsequent runs be cheaper?

In all seriousness, I doubt Crom will wait to let us know the cost of the production run as he'll want to be able to make a bit of money for his efforts and will need to cover s&h and possible "dead boards".

If he was to admit that 100 boards cost $10,000 (for example) and there was a $1000 tool-up charge then people would be demand him to sell them for $110 each and a few would insult him for selling for anything more.

I certainly wouldn't admit the price and simply anounce a retail cost per unit on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.