68030TK etc
 

Wrong thread. This thread isnt for general accelerator purchase inquiries... its big enough already.

Yes. But talk about it somewhere else.

I dont sell any of my boards fully assembled. This is a hobby for me.

So do it yourself, or find someone else... sheesh.

This guy was spamming polish forums for Wicher, HC533 and other cards, including DIY - seems to think that people are desperate for his money and will throw everything away just to solder (or even develop stuff faster) what he ordered...

He should get in contact with someone locally in Budapest who can solder the DIY for him.

It seems that we're witnessing the emergence of the same kind of 'make it work' demographic that plagued opensource software IRC channels in the late 90's.

Back then there were projects that either worked incredibly well or simply looked and felt 'cool', but you usually had to jump through hoops to get it to even compile on your system. For myself this learning curve was part of the fun, and it was especially rewarding when you finally got something working.

More casual users however, for whatever reason, simply wanted the product. They would enter channels and near enough demand for help, bug fixes, or further development. Most of the time they were told, rightly, to 'fix it themselves' - which is a trend we're also seeing here (again, rightly so).

The recent rise in opensource hobbyist electronics with the availability of affordable PCB manufacturing seems to be creating a culture near mirroring the one back then, which aside from being frustrating is certainly quite interesting. I guess when something cheap (in parts), 'free as in beer' (in design), and desirable comes along, some people will always want a part of the action without any of the effort. They want access to the bleeding edge that others already have access to, but without the learning and time involved.

It took me two hours (don't laugh) the other night just to get the CPLD's soldered to my TF530 board, which i bought from Stephen on ebay. Was it frustrating? Yes (i've done a lot of soldering before but never SMD with that kinda pin pitch)... but when i finally got rid of the solder bridges under the microscope and confirmed it was all okay, I was pretty elated.

If you want one of these cards, you need to ask yourself whether you want to take on the project of building one of these cards. If the answer is no, you need to buy a commercial card or wait for this open hardware craze to reach the 'ubuntu' stage.

John

Why do all developers not make the distribution properly? Hobby, or not hobby project.
Webshop, etc.. Look icomp.de ACA cards, etc..
Why on retro forums (ppa.pl. amibay, etc.) only it's possible to buy new products?
Wicher 500, Savina68k, TF530, other TF, 68030TK, etc.
Why the developers do not join forces to make ONE product?
Why does everybody want to develop an own product?
Everybody wins (developers, buyers), if a big development is ready instead of many little individual developments. Less development work. Look Vampire 500.
Wicher 500.....TF530, etc. sold 40-60 pieces/year? Soldering 1 card/week at home? ACA 500 and ACA500plus sold min. 300-500 pieces/year.
The Amiga developments are dispersed on the internet. The informations are not collected onto 1 place (central Amiga website).
The TF530 card better, cheaper, than ACA500plus + ACA1233, but cannot be reached.

Maybe you could start such a company, with either your own capital or investor capital. Maybe you could then head-hunt the better hobbyists, employ them, and pay for whatever facilities and transport needed for them to consult from their home nations. Maybe then you could organise the mass production of the finished product and market it at a price point low enough to sell but high enough to turn a profit.

Then maybe you could come back here and answer your own bloody questions.

@amiga2000

Everyone has their own reasons for doing things. Again, for most of them, it is just a hobby. They do not want the hassle of making a business out of it.

Nobody is stopping you from doing the things you say. If you want things done faster, you are free to do it. Are you willing to put the money, time, and effort into making an accelerator business?

It's a hobby project on a 30 YEAR OLD computer. No one is going to make money to pay rent, mortage, utilities, car, children fees, etc by selling HW for a 30 YEAR OLD COMPUTER! Deal with it! And as for different hardware developers, etc - think of it like this - perhaps the people want to learn and make a bit of "pocket money" on the side to cover the 1000's of hours (and upset wives / husbands / children) they have invested.

Solder one yourself, or pay the money for someone to do it for you if you can't.

Let keep the thread technical and not commerical, please?!?

I reckon this guy is trolling.

Not entirely sure what your issue is Amiga2000.

Personally, I think you should dail back the attitude and ask nicely.

From what I can make out, he's told you he does it as a hobby, can do one card a week, and normally says there's a two week turn around.

SO, maybe he's got more than one person in front of you in the queue, or has some really life issue, or you've been far too aggressive in your emails and he's not prioritising it. Who knows. What I do now is you need the service he's offering so maybe your current course of action is the wrong way to go about it.

Why are you banned from Amibay? I'm going to guess it's being abusive to sellers.

have indeed some persons waiting on TF530, two persons are waiting on 68030TK and four persons are waiting on 68EC020TK. This weekend have finished to build 10x Megachip Expansions and sent these out. So yeah, it's my hobby, im interested in a lot of amiga hardware, building it for my purposes generally, but do also some cards for community, cause i know how do you feel if you are unable to solder, yet wanna have a good accelerator card or memory expasion. I am doing it also to get funds back im invested in the soldering station, microscope, oscilloscope and other lab hardware. I do donations every month to Amibay and A1k, cause i like these forums and really like to help owners a little bit. Hope to be able to support EAB soon..

@amiga2000
1. The way You communicate, and how You decide how much you gonna pay for hardware is not ok for me, hence no answer, Sorry.
(if i recall correctly - You've done same thing with my 1MB ChipRAM expansion for A500+ lot on Ebay, i've placed in March this year)
2. And second thing: You want to have CF Card with installed software included - it is not legal cause Workbench is still under Copyright. Sorry
3. This thread is about Stephen's Leary's TF accelerator cards, so please keep it clear.

PS
AND PLEASE do not mix ACA500(plus), Vampire with open source products! There is a BIG defference!!
Open source is OPEN (everyone can build these cards, while commercial is CLOSED! (and so will it be)

PPS
Just go and buy Vampire, it is better and faster than any card mentioned here..
Thank You

Viktor

Discussion split from the Terriblefire thread.