Thinking of offering a Amiga CF/HDD setup service

[fitzsteve]

I've been thinking of all the ebay seller's doing pre-installed CF's at ridiculous prices, now with the permision from Members such as Bloodwych and KillerGorilla I would like to offer a much cheaper service to the community.

I was thinking a flat fee of say £10 for my time, you can send me a CF/2.5in HDD and I will set it up to the users spec and send it back.

Or I could provide a CF & IDE adapter at cost.

I would not go ahead with this without the blessing of the community, especially KG and Bloodwych whose work I would be using, I would be happy do donate a percentage of the proceeds back to you guys for your excellent work.

I'm not looking to make masses of money out of the community, I just want to offer a better value service

To keep things above board buyers would need to own the original workbench disks required for the activation of their chosen OS.

Thanks for reading.

Steve.

[killergorilla]

I want 80% of all takings, plus the promise of a company car when profits reach more than £10.

I also want the complete assurance that you'll put one of my "KG Was Here" stickers on every harddrive/cf card.

If you can't satisfy both of the above, then no deal.

[alexh]

@FitzSteve

Why? You really need money?

[TCD]

What about writing a step-by-step guide with lots of pictures instead?

[fitzsteve]

It was just an idea, sounds like it was a stupid one.

Sorry guys.

@Alexh, if I was desperate for money I could just stick £40 sets on ebay and not say anything, the idea was to benefit those who cannot do it themselves.

[seuden]

I don't think it was a stupid idea. I think it'd be £10 well spent.

[Wasagi]

At least it offers an alternative to paying £40 on ebay if you really can't do it. I'd like to offer a retrobrighting service but decided against it because of the same demons, even if the price barely covers the cost of the supplies and doesnt factor in the 8 odd hours of constant work reapplying the solution!

[Allen1]

Hi there Steve,

I know you have helped others on this forum out by setting up their hard drives and CF cards for them just for the love of it. It would have been nice if permission had been given to go forward with your idea as it would put an end to people getting ripped off via ebay sellers and the likes and may have also got other folk to look into buying a WHDLoad key and keep the whole thing going.

As a small side line it would have saved a lot of hassle for those who can't get their heads around setting up their system (there seems to be quite a lot who don't have the time or patience for that too) but at least you have asked, its a lot more than the ebay sellers did and its not as if you could mass produce drives ready to go as they do take real time to format and partition then set up.

It would have been nice to have someone who could provide the service for a small fee but I can understand KG not wanting anyone to profit from using his work, still a shame though as we have all seen how good the end results have been in various threads.

Blimey look at the replies already as I was typing this

[killergorilla]

I never said it was a stupid idea

I personally wouldn't use it, but that's me.

I was kidding about my demands, obviously. Unless you want to send me a car.

I'd never want any money for it.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

I never said it was a stupid idea

Sorry the was how I read the first few replies

I personally wouldn't use it, but that's me.

I doubt someone as l33t as you would need to mate!

I was kidding about my demands, obviously. Unless you want to send me a car.

Well I guess you could have my broken car if I can't get it though MOT!

I'd never want any money for it.

If there's a donation button on your site you would get one from me anyway

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

I never said it was a stupid idea

I personally wouldn't use it, but that's me.

I was kidding about my demands, obviously. Unless you want to send me a car.

I'd never want any money for it.

Wow KG, does that mean you will allow Steve to provide the service, you know he wouldn't make his fortune from doing this and it would be a cheap and cheerful way to help others get their systems up and running using their own workbench disks etc. If you are OK with it then maybe a written permission between yourself and Steve would be the next step forward to stop a flood of copy cats jumping on the band wagon (just a thought).

[killergorilla]

Haha.

I don't need to give permission!

All I did was install them, I don't "own" them.

I host stuff on my site out of convenience, people can continue to share it all however they want, wherever they want!

[seuden]

The only thing Steve would need permission for is KGLoad.

EDIT: And even then what can KG do about it? Aye? Aye? Outside now, you and I, now!!

[killergorilla]

KGLoad is a different kettle of fish, but I have no problem with the old version (the one in ClassicWB) being distributed anywhere.

[fitzsteve]

This would also be a lot better than your £40 ebay kits as well since you'll get a tailor made workbench for your system, not a dual booting WB3.1/AmigasysAGA setup that might not work properly on your system!

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

Haha.

I don't need to give permission!

All I did was install them, I don't "own" them.

I host stuff on my site out of convenience, people can continue to share it all however they want, wherever they want!

Still its nice not to be took a lend of and I think its nice to have decent folk asking about such things as to find out from other sources that someone is using these installs without at least seeing if it was OK first.

All I can really say is I am truly IMPRESSED M8

[fitzsteve]

Just posted a link in the ebay links section for £2.99 Microdrives, so in theory I could do the whole service for £14-15 with a 4gb Microdrive

EDIT

Looks like these MD's might not be suitable without modifications to the CF-IDE adapter as they are 3.3v so scrap that.

Anyway CF cards seem to be £8.99 for 4gb anyone know where they can be sourced cheaper?

Steve

[ck1200]

Hi Steve, i think that is a superb idea and would be good to offer to the community, i also think the same for the retro bright service wasagi mentioned

i have things in need of that to lol

[Zetr0]

If i could sugest anytihng,

for a fully loaded 4-6GB CF/Microdive system with ClassicWB-xx and KGWHDLoad Games/Demos I would recommend a price of £25 - this includeds

1. £3 donation to Blodwych (weather he likes it or not)
2. £3 donation to the Murdurious Simmian (KG)
3. £2.50 for Postage
4. £6.50 for the CF/MD + IDE Adpter
5. £10 for your time. (its likely to take a good two hours copying)

That seems a reasonable good to me.... just becareful though as there will be some that wont want you to do this no matter if you did it for free (including components), they would actively do thier best to stop you.

Personally I think the idea has merit as it can really help those that just want to enjoy their amiga, but as I say there are some out there that are either just spitefull or protecting some vauge legal writ that says there the only ones to distrubute said WB files / kickroms.

and dont think for one moment that they will all be vocal, I suspect some would be quite nefarious about it and partake of your service and then use this against you.

not mentioning any names.... but the ex-owner of amiga.org comes to mind.

[fitzsteve]

Thanks for your input Zetr0