WTB: DKB3128 Memory board

[Bazzaq]

Hi, im looking to buy a DKB3128 if anyboady is willing to sell.

pm me with your price and terms.

thanks.

[Tenacious]

I would like 2 of these as well.  To bad there were not a ton of these made and that we can't buy them for a reasonable used price today.

I tried recently to get a count of people interested in a new ZorroIII design using modern memory modules.  The thread turned into academic cheeze and "..what's the point with OS4.0 out now.." discussion.

I still think a new design would be viable, profitable, and a no-brainer for the right company.

[oldman3000]

I have one in storage; not looking for money.  More for trade.  I know its in a ESD bag and just need to find it.  I have the book that goes with it, I couldn't use it because I had an older 040 on my TRex board.

Mike
San Diego

[Jeff]

What do you want for in in trade? I have a pile of stuff here. PM me if you are interested in something unless the thread initiator want's to make a deal. After all it was his thread:-D

Jeff

[Methuselas]

Jeff wrote:
What do you want for in in trade? I have a pile of stuff here.

Jeff

Oooh. I'm kinda curious as to what you have now, Jeff.  :lol:  :-P

[alexh]

Tenacious wrote:
I still think a new design would be viable, profitable, and a no-brainer for the right company.

No-brainer, yes.
Viable and profitable, no.

There just isnt a large enough market.

ZIII is only on A3000/A4000 users, which greatly narrows your potential market.

Most A3000/A4000 users already have 146Mbytes of RAM (18 on motherboard, 128Mbytes on accelerator) and that means that you have narrowed your market even further, to those who want more than 146Mbytes of RAM.

You'd be lucky to sell 100-200 units.

You would have to create a card with another function as well as RAM, that would grab the attention of most A3000/A4000 users before it would be viable.

[HyAmi]

You would have to create a card with another function as well as RAM, that would grab the attention of most A3000/A4000 users before it would be viable.

Well, a combination with Deneb would be nice then. That's about the only new Z3 card likely to be made these days.

[alexh]

HyAmi wrote:
Well, a combination with Deneb would be nice then. That's about the only new Z3 card likely to be made these days.

Too late now I fear. Last I heard the board was going off for production and it's only features were USB 2.0 HS and FlashROM.

I hope Deneb sells well, but I fear it too has a very small market. Lots of A3000/A4000 users already have a Highway or Subway and Kickflash / eFlash 4000. Will they be excited enough to buy a faster card?

[HyAmi]

alexh wrote:

HyAmi wrote:
Well, a combination with Deneb would be nice then. That's about the only new Z3 card likely to be made these days.

Too late now I fear. Last I heard the board was going off for production and it's only features were USB 2.0 HS and FlashROM.

I hope Deneb sells well, but I fear it too has a very small market. Lots of A3000/A4000 users already have a Highway or Subway, will they be excited enough to buy a faster card?

 :idea: Well, then we'll need to buy all the cards they make/made, in order to make them consider building a Rev2  :-D

[Tenacious]

I was wrong to get hopes up.  

It's important to exhaustively outline the pitfalls (whether true for all or not) of such an endeaver.  No company, reguardless of resources or intentions, should consider manufacturing such a board.

We should not waste time and effort exploring interest, possibilities, or resources in this area.  It's fantasy after all.  Big hairy grin!

[Ral-Clan]

....er....well I'd buy one if someone made it!

I don't agree with Alexh's statement that "most" a3000/4000 owners already have 140+ MBs of RAM on board.  I would say that MOST A3000/4000 owners are still operating in the range of the onboard 16MBs and desperately wanting to expand (this is just based on the specs in signatures I've seen & on A3000s/4000s selling online).

I have 16MB on my A3000s motherboard +32MB on its accelerator.  That's the limit of my hardware at the moment, but it's not enough to do massive audio projects in RAM.  The expansion board would be a great help!

[keropi]

alexh wrote:
I hope Deneb sells well, but I fear it too has a very small market. Lots of A3000/A4000 users already have a Highway or Subway and Kickflash / eFlash 4000. Will they be excited enough to buy a faster card?

dunno for others, I will get 2 for my 2 A4000's!
with DENEB not only I will have faster USB , but I will also support 2 great amiga-hard/soft persons: Michael Boehmer and Chris Hodges. that is how I see it.

[alexh]

I don't agree with Alexh's statement that "most" a3000/4000 owners already have 140+ MBs of RAM on board.  I would say that MOST A3000/4000 owners are still operating in the range of the onboard 16MBs and desperately wanting to expand (this is just based on the specs in signatures I've seen & on A3000s/4000s selling online).

Is that not just that they are selling their accelerator separately?

I have 16MB on my A3000s motherboard +32MB on its accelerator. That's the limit of my hardware at the moment

Which accelerator have you got?

[Ral-Clan]

I've got the mercury PP&S accelerator, which accepts a max of 32MB onboard.

Surely there were more A3000s and 4000s made than accelerators (as many people in the early to mid 90s were happy to use the onboard 030/040s in those computers).

Even generously estimating that there was one accelerator produced for every two A3000/A4000 computers, a third to half of these accelerators were probably Commodore's unexpandable 3640 and third party ones that had the 32/64MB upper limit (especially the tightly cramped A3000D accelerators).  The remaining half could take more RAM (128MB etc.).

This admittedly crude estimate means that for every 4 A3000s/4000s produced, there was only 1 accelerator capable of accepting more than 128 MBs of RAM.  Remember, most were produced in the early 90s when this amount of RAM was seen as outrageous.

I still believe there are far more A3000s/4000s surviving and in use than there are accelerators capable of taking 128MB RAM.

So I think a Zorro III RAM board would be useful.

[alexh]

ral-clan wrote:
Surely there were more A3000s and 4000s made than accelerators.

Quite probably. But of all the A3k & A4k's ever made how many have now been destroyed or are just not used anymore?

ral-clan wrote:
Even generously estimating that there was one accelerator produced for every two A3000/A4000 computers, a third to half of these accelerators were probably Commodore's unexpandable 3640 and third party ones that had the 32/64MB upper limit

With no cold hard facts on numbers we're just speculating. But if you look at all the different models of accelerator that were ever available for the A3k/A4k:

Apollo = 128Mbyte
QuickPak = 128Mbyte
GVP = 128Mbyte
Phase 5 = 128Mbyte
Warp Engine = 128Mbyte
PPS = 32Mbyte
A3640 = 0 Mbyte

This admittedly crude estimate means that for every 4 A3000s/4000s produced, there was only 1 accelerator capable of accepting more than 128 MBs of RAM.

Quite possibly. But of those other 3 how many are still in use today? And of those, how many of those users want more RAM?

Is the main reason there are so many A3640 boards not because they came "free" with many A4000's? They are not exactly fast.

The A3k/A4k accelerators you see the most of on ebay are the Phase5 boards and were successors to many an A3640 which got stuffed in a draw as a backup.

I still believe there are far more A3000s/4000s surviving and in use than there are accelerators capable of taking 128MB RAM.

As an owner of one, what would you rather spend your money on? A RAM card or an 060 accelerator with RAM?

So I think a Zorro III RAM board would be useful.

Useful, yes. Economically viable as a new product, I am not so sure.

I could be wrong and there could be thousands of A3k/A4k A3640 users out there screaming for such a product, but I doubt it.