X-Surf II, what a scam...

You may not realize how much it costs to produce that custom zorro adaptor in the quantities the Amiga market has demand for... He's not manufacturing these in bulk remember. Or the fact that he'd like compensation for supporting his products, and some amount of profit from the thing so he can pay rent and buy food. Or are you one of those "I don't care if Amiga developers have bills to pay" folks? Considering the size of his available market, I don't think it much of a ripoff myself. If you don't like it, get a Zorro3 machine if you don't already have one and a PCI bus adaptor. That way you only buy the adaptor once and then can have your $5 network card, $40 sound card, etc...

[NightShade737]

You make it sound like this is the persons only form of income, which would just be plain stupid if it was. Charging so much for an adapter isn't justified, no matter how much you try and make it sound like they have to pay for everything.

[redrumloa]

Charging so much for an adapter isn't justified,

Sounds like a good opportunity for an enteprising person such as yourself.

[NightShade737]

It would be if I was better at electronics, wasn't at full time univerisity and didn't have to work in my spare time.

[mikeymike]

It would be if I was better at electronics, wasn't at full time univerisity and didn't have to work in my spare time.

So in short, you would do this if you had any idea how to do it?

Perhaps the 'get rich quick' spams might yield the opportunities you need to set up such a venture?

[NightShade737]

So in short, you would do this if you had any idea how to do it?

That isn't even remotely like anything I said.

Perhaps the 'get rich quick' spams might yield the opportunities you need to set up such a venture?

What does this have to do with anything?

Now who are the ones trolling?

[voxel]

@NightShade737

Q>Charging so much for an adapter isn't justified

OK! can YOU do better for less money with the same level of customer care and product quality?
Yes? Well DO IT! I would be happy to buy some tens of it :-)

BTW, what do you think of Elbox charging $$$ for a cheap PC pci USB 2.0 board after changing the board name? no R&D, no adaptator here.

[mikeymike]

@ NightShade737

Your argument does not make any sense.  First you admit to a lack of electronics knowledge, you don't put up any logic to back up your argument, imply a lack of business experience, then you fall back on a lame excuse that is supposed to 'finish off your argument nicely'.

All electronic products are really expensive when they first come on the market.  The cost is driven down mainly due to the amount of units sold, and partially down to product delivery efficiency.  Amiga hardware does not have a large amount of customers, nor does it have funding to drive the cost of production down.  So it stays at the price that it came on the market at.

Mobile phones would be really expensive still if there hadn't been a phenomenal amount of sales done.  Mobile phone companies took chances (but based on a real potential to sell in large amounts, unlike the Amiga hardware market), and they paid off.

[NightShade737]

Right, so your arguments basically say that, if you cant do it yourself cheaper, then you can't argue. Well thats a great idea. Maybe I should pay £7000 for a graphics card, because "I can't make one the same for cheaper", sorry, but that argument is utter bollocks. Just because you can't make one cheaper yourself doesn't mean that you can't complain about high pricing. The same argument was bought up against software "Oh, if you can't make a better one then stop moaning/critisizing it" that statement is plain stupid and is basically a developer/creator argument to try and stop people complaining about problems.

The expensiveness caused by small sales, and rip off pricing are two completely different things that you dont seem to want to differentiate between. Yes, the Surf would be quite expensive, but current pricing for lots of things is way above the "small amount" barrier.

I don't see any logic to back up your argument either other than the same "It's expensive because not many are made" statement which is moot for the reason I have just stated.

[reflect]

You guys make it sound like the XSurf2 is nothing but a cheap PC card and a custom adapter to make it fit in a zorro bus. That is not the case as it has 1x3,5" IDE and 1x2,5" IDE connector, 2 clockports and one 26pin Individual Computer port.

Then you compare it to the PC market. The PC market sells more cards in a day than the Amiga market sells in a year, most likely. How can you even begin to compare prices then?

[Ilwrath]

I think the biggest problem is that the card isn't exactly accurately represented.  Very rarely, if ever, will you find it publicized that it's a two piece card.  People might be more accepting of the fact, if they knew it up front.  I know I was kinda ticked when I first found it out when opening the box of one brand new I had bought mail-order....

Of course, also, it would have helped if the X-Surf wasn't such a shoddy card.  (This is from my personal experience with the X-Surf 1 -- I haven't bought an X-Surf 2 -- wonder why?)  First off, is the ambush of a 2 piece card.  Next, comes the surprise when it's dimensions are about 5mm off, so it doesn't fit properly into a stock case.  Then, when examining the card, you realize just how many poor solder joints are on this card...  Then, you finally modify your stock case (which already has three normal sized cards in it that fit perfectly) and try to run the software.  Then you realize the card is slower than any other Zorro ethernet solution for Amiga, including cards made over 10 years earlier.  Then, of course, the card arcs at one of the bad solder joints and fries itself, and hopefully not your computer with it.  This is the story I lived.

I will say that Jens did stand by the card, and offered to take a look at it, if I wanted to pack it up, and pay postage both ways to Germany.  After my last experience with shipping items to Germany (Phase5), I chose not to take him up on that offer, though.

[JKD]

Feel free to design your own and bring it to market.....

Steve

[voxel]

@Ilwrath

Uh?? :-o I bought four of these cards since it appeared on the Amiga market.
Three was XSurf I and the last XSurf II, the first one in 1999 and the last in 2003.

It all fit perfectly in my Amigas (A4000 Desktop, A3000 Desktop, A3000 Tower, A4000 Tower) all in their original cases and without ANY modifications to it.

I've never have ANY problems with that four cards since and it are working nearly 24/7 here.

I will try it in some A2000s I have to see how it works.

As for the "slow speed" of it, it is known that the Sana II drivers are slower than their NMI counterpart, if you use Miami it's explained in it's docs ;-) speed is a question of cables quality and lenght too :-)

As for the "advertising", having a look at Jens' web site will show you it in all it's glory here : http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/xsurf_e.htm (xsurf I with photo and long description and here : http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/xsurf2_e.htm (for xsurf II description).
If you want bigger photos you can go to http://www.amiga-hardware.com/xsurf.html.

I don't know how you do when you want to buy something for my Amigas, but for myself I always go to the manufacturer site to have the more infos I can on that product before buying it.

[NightShade737]

That is not the case as it has 1x3,5" IDE and 1x2,5" IDE connector, 2 clockports and one 26pin Individual Computer port.

It's not quite that simple...

The two IDE-ports should be considered as a free add-on. The necessary drivers are not included, because we don't want you to pay for an IDE controller if you only intend to get an Ethernet card. If you want to use IDE devices, you'll have to buy the IDE-fix software package. Anyway, the ports should not be considered as full IDE ports, because you can't boot from them, and the timing is not configurable. If you want these functions, we recommend a Buddha Flash controller.

[Ilwrath]

@voxel-

Ah yes.... But where does it actually say it's a standard ISA card grafted onto a Zorro interface?  (Hint: It doesn't)  Also, the small picture on Jens site isn't enough to really realize exactly what is going on, if you haven't seen the actual card, or a larger picture before.  It just looks like an odd-shaped card.

Amiga-hardware.com is an excellent resource.  Unfortunatly, I didn't know about it 3 years ago when I bought the X-Surf.

It all fit perfectly in my Amigas (A4000 Desktop, A3000 Desktop, A3000 Tower, A4000 Tower) all in their original cases and without ANY modifications to it.

This was in an A4000 desktop.  The card was approx 5mm too long. This was partially due to a very thick metal used on the backplane of the card, and not bent properly to fit.  Though the backplane was rivitted on, so I couldn't remove it, and had to clip a small bit of the comparatively thin metal on the back of my case.

As for the "slow speed" of it, it is known that the Sana II drivers are slower than their NMI counterpart, if you use Miami it's explained in it's docs speed is a question of cables quality and lenght too

This was using MNI!  The card is dog slow in any mode.  Compare it with any drivers/stack you like to any other Zorro-based card, and post numbers.  It's about half the speed of the next slowest that I've seen.  And a cable length of 10ft to a dedicated 10/100 switch shouldn't be a problem.  It sure isn't for any other system I have....   (Including my 4000D with a different card.)

[ShadesOfGrey]

Well, there is the point Floid made.  Have you considered the possibility that some of this "rip off pricing" has been to genereate R&D funds for things like the KickFlash, Delfina Flipper, and the Catweasel Mk3?

Think of it this way.  Inititially the $120 price tag is intended to cover all costs (R&D, QA, manufacturing, support)  to produce the board, plus a small profit.  After a while, Jens recoups his R&D on the card itself and the demand is sufficient that he can produce card in larger lots and reduce manfucaturing costs (though manufacturing will probaly go up as the market it saturated).  He could slash the price of the card and pass the savings on to the consumer...  But his consumers keep pestering him for a PCI version of his Catweasel card.  The problem is, he has no where near the money it would take for the R&D of such a card...  So what is he to do, keep the price of the Catweasel at $120 and use the funds it generates to work on the Catweasel Mk3.  As an offshoot, the Flipper interface designed for the Catweasel can now be incorporated into other products (i.e Delfina Flipper), effectively reducing their cost.

Oh and one last thought.  Jens isn't the only one that sets the price of his products.  You have to consider the retail markup as well.  Take for example the DICE C compiler...  It was released as freeware a while back, but at least one retailer has it listed for $90 on their site.  Granted, they probably spent quite a bit for it when it was still a commercial product.  But can you really justify that price for media and a bound manual?