may look valid, but let me get to each and every aspect.
Amber cards and NOS flickerfixers: They are all limited to Hires. Indivision makes S-Hires, which requires twice the data rate.
Older flickerfixers only double the vertical frequency. This results in 50Hz for PAL screens, which can't be displayed on most modern monitors. Indivision will even output 62.5Hz on PAL screens, making today's cheap monitors and overstock items available to the Amiga. The overall system cost will be lower, as you can choose a cheaper monitor. Needless to say that a truly async frame buffer makes things more complicated on the hardware.
Older flickerfixers always needed adjustment. Doing a few turns on a potentiometer doesn't hurt, but having to do it over and over again when room/computer temperature changes is just not state-of-the art. Indivision ECS does not require any adjustments. It works right out of the box, pain-free, guaranteed.
We have been working on Indivision ECS since february of this year. Knowledge from Indivision AGA and from Clone-A has gone into this product as well. Several prototypes had to be built, and only the manpower (Oliver's and mine) already exceeded 50k EUR development cost. Translate that to 500 units sold after 2 years (which is my expectation), you're already at 100,- EUR per unit. Why can I still sell it at 99,- EUR each? The answer is that I'm working for much less than an engineer normally makes. I'm paying Oliver with all the fuzz that German law requires: Retirement plan, health care, insurance, paid holidays.
Over-engineerd? Nope, I have to reject that. You can buy smaller FPGAs (in terms of logic), but that would not save you any money. Indivision ECS is pretty optimal with an Altera EP1C3 and a Xilinx 72-Macrocell CPLD (weird marriage, eh?). More components are on the board for clock generation, memory and 3.3V conversion, where none could be replaced for a cheaper one.
The trick is to justify making the thing at all: We need these powerful components, as less power would not save money. There is no cheaper way of making up-to-date-hardware. I might even go as far as to say that there's no cheaper way of making the hardware at all, as older components are more expensive.
So why not make the best of it? I bet wining would be even louder if we stopped development in the middle of the road and started selling, like many far-east R&D teams do. This is just not our style. Yes, it's a German thing to make it the "best possible solution", whereas there might be markets where people would accept pixel flickering and fewer features, maybe even two re-starts a day.
Since technology dictates that we're using these powerful components anyway, we should make the best out of it. I must admit that I even like the thought of a Mercedes over a Kia. And Mercedes quality may not always reach Toyota quantities. Given the high development cost, you all will hopefully understand that a 99,- EUR price tag is in the Volkswagen Golf range (is it still the rabbit in the US?), nowhere near expensive sports cars.
That said, it would indeed make things cheaper if I produced 1000 instead of 500 units. If someone wants to place such an order with me, I'm happy to sell exclusively to that person, provided that the final price is really under 99,- EUR over the next two years. Who is putting out that kind of money?
Jens
