Vampire 500+ Pre-orders now being accepted

[Sinphaltimus]

Thanks! I'll have to give this a go after work today. I can use Amiga Explorer to create the bootable floppy before installing the Vampire.

While searching I found 2 interesting things I haven't read about before. There's a boot disk to get SD card booting working for now - WIP until integrated into core - https://github.com/henrikstengaard/vampire-boot

AND ApolloOS - http://apolloos.weebly.com/

[demolition]

Yes, although that boot disk does not run in RTG mode so it will not show anything on the HDMI output.

[majsta]

Saga on e-bay continues Now someone reported me for doing something called "search manipulation"
Awesome

We appreciate your efforts to list this product under Computers/Tablets & Networking>Vintage Computing>Vintage Parts & Accessories; however, it is not the relevant one. We would like to suggest the most appropriate category for your product where the buyers may tend to look for; it eventually increases products? visibility and stimulates speedy sale. Correct category for your product: Computers/Tablets & Networking > Computer Components & Parts > Other Components & Parts

[gulliver]

You should definately sell them outside ebay. Ebay´s policies suck.

Good luck.

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by majsta

Saga on e-bay continues Now someone reported me for doing something called "search manipulation"
Awesome

Wow, some mentally challenged individual really has an axe to grind with you. Geeze.

[Mick]

Just list it under the advised section and keep going until they run out of ammunition to shut down your auctions, you must be ruffling some feathers somewhere.

Have you tried telling Ebay that you think you're being unfairly targetted by a competitor?

[matthey]

Originally Posted by majsta

Saga on e-bay continues Now someone reported me for doing something called "search manipulation"
Awesome

They may have a valid argument this time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was E-bay staff who flagged it.

Is the Vampire 600 done now with kipper2k stopping production?

Hi all, Just a quick note to give you update on my status. I took a big hit on bad board production recently which has put a huge dent money wise on what i can and want to do in the future. I am going to exhaust all my supply of different projects that i have sitting about and will then kinda fizzle away and just do a few projects only. I don't intend on continuing with making the Vampire 600 boards and i will be exhausting those items also. Thanks for everyones support.

Brian

http://www.kipper2k.com/

There have been enough production difficulties. Is it that difficult to do reliable low production electronics or is it just bad luck?

Originally Posted by gulliver

You should definately sell them outside ebay. Ebay´s policies suck.

It's not that difficult to add a PayPal "Buy Now" button to a web site. The fees should be lower than using E-bay with PayPal too.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by matthey

They may have a valid argument this time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was E-bay staff who flagged it.

Is the Vampire 600 done now with kipper2k stopping production?



http://www.kipper2k.com/

There have been enough production difficulties. Is it that difficult to do reliable low production electronics or is it just bad luck?



It's not that difficult to add a PayPal "Buy Now" button to a web site. The fees should be lower than using E-bay with PayPal too.

Yes it is difficult to do reliable low production electronics with relatively small chips with a pretty high BGA pin count. Kipper had it down pretty well when he was producing 10 boards a day but that wasn't fun for him at all. The great number of very tiny caps on the backside of the board are also not fun to place by hand either.

Just about anybody with a soldering iron can assemble something like an A2091 by hand without too much trouble or paying much attention. Assembling a Vampire board at home takes a lot of skill and time. Which is partly why the price jumped so much from the initial Amibay prices ~100EUR to 300 to have them factory assembled.

Majsta even attempted to set up his own pick and place machine to set up his own factory at home but the last I heard it didn't work out.

Not to mention for the quantities they're looking for lately are hard to find at the price they were getting initially.

Also Kipper and Majsta had some medical problems not directly related to doing their own assembly but having to deal with that when people are screaming for their preorders is tough. Really it's amazing these guys did so many by themselves for as long as they did and the early adopters got to benefit from the early "buddy" prices.

[MikeyG]

Originally Posted by matthey

Is the Vampire 600 done now with kipper2k stopping production?

I emailed them the other day with this question and had this response.

We hope to reopen V600 orders soon when majsta is ready to take over kippa's
V600 orders.

So it sounds promising that there will be more V600's made. I have an Amiga 600 on the way to me and hope to upgrade it with a Vampire. Hopefully it is soon as I'm debating whether to buy a Furia 600 if I can't get a vampire.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by matthey

They may have a valid argument this time.

No, they don't.
This is a vintage computer accessory!
majsta is being trolled.

majsta, a suggestion: make a new user and don't ever publish anywhere that it is you. Sell the Vampires anonymously.
As for building them, is there ANY chance you'd sell the whole thing as a kit, for those who can make a run and then resell? There's so many people with enough talent to do it.

It's not that difficult to add a PayPal "Buy Now" button to a web site. The fees should be lower than using E-bay with PayPal too.

You must have not read the reason why majsta is putting those on eBay.
The reason is, to use the bid system.

[talybont]

Originally Posted by Akira

No, they don't.
This is a vintage computer accessory!

The category was:

"Vintage Parts & Accessories"

There is nothing vintage about the Vampire, it is brand new. Even though it is designed for a vintage computer, doesn't make it a vintage accessory. In 20 years it will be a vintage accessory.

At least in my opinion it can be argued that it belongs in a different category, but personally I really don't care.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by talybont

but personally I really don't care.

You really don't care yet post about it.

The root category majsta posted it in is "Computers/Tablets & Networking>Vintage Computing", eBay's suggested root category is "Computers/Tablets & Networking>Computer Components & Parts"

Which one does it actually belong to is easy to determine, unless one is a troll trying to get majsta's products off eBay.

[talybont]

Originally Posted by Akira

You really don't care yet post about it.

The root category majsta posted it in is "Computers/Tablets & Networking>Vintage Computing", eBay's suggested root category is "Computers/Tablets & Networking>Computer Components & Parts"

Which one does it actually belong to is easy to determine, unless one is a troll trying to get majsta's products off eBay.

A brand new product does not belong in "Vintage Parts & Accessories". The root category doesn't factor into it.

[Mr.Flibble]

Originally Posted by talybont

A brand new product does not belong in "Vintage Parts & Accessories". The root category doesn't factor into it.

In that case most of the stuff in the same category doesn't belong either, take a look in the vintage category, and check the "new" checkbox:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Vintage-C...p2045573.m1684

All manner of flashroms, sd/compactflash add-on boards etc which are new designs or products for old machines. Vampire is exactly the same deal, a new add-on for a vintage system.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by talybont

A brand new product does not belong in "Vintage Parts & Accessories". The root category doesn't factor into it.

I think you should report all of them. That'll teach them!

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Akira

Suggestion, maybe: talk to Gideon who makes 1541 Ultimate. I think by now his project pretty much runs on wheels but it took him years to get to that point. Last time I remember him traveling to China to check out the production facilities. His product success rate also got reaaaally boosted when he developed testing hardware. He might be able to offer you some insight as a fellow FPGA hardware producer in Europe.

Or Lotharek, who also makes both FPGA hardware (MiST) and Amiga accelerators (Furia) in Europe.

[adonay]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

I think you should report all of them. That'll teach them!

I Think he is to busy chasing majsta's auctions.

[Mick]

Originally Posted by Mr.Flibble

In that case most of the stuff in the same category doesn't belong either, take a look in the vintage category, and check the "new" checkbox:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Vintage-C...p2045573.m1684

All manner of flashroms, sd/compactflash add-on boards etc which are new designs or products for old machines. Vampire is exactly the same deal, a new add-on for a vintage system.

I think the difference is nobody is going through the trouble to file complaints about those other listings, that's why I said all majsta can really do is make his listing as bullet proof as possible so that whoever has a vendetta against him has no valid reason to complain.

I'd also send an angry message to Ebay asking for advice on making the listing '100% legal' seeing as they are repeatedly shutting it down for various infringements. Complain that he's had x listings shut down and believes he's the victim of a targetted campaign and isn't happy etc. They might not be so quick to shut down the listings in the future.

[majsta]

Yes exactly like someone pointed, for each and every single thing related to Amiga everything goes, no matter what category is or what picture is or how is presented regarding word order in advert. No matter how perfect I make this someone is spending hours and hours to find how to report it. Interesting thing is this, over e-bay I sell 2-4 cards per month nothing more, over our site 99% of the sales goes. Let' say that we are close to 500 V500 V2+ sent. So what's the point of stopping this on e-bay I wonder.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by Akira

No, they don't.
This is a vintage computer accessory!
majsta is being trolled.

I don't make the rules for the Ebay categories which may be defined and posted somewhere. IMO, English allows "Vintage Computer Parts & Accessories" to mean the following.

1) vintage (old) computer parts & accessories
2) computer parts & accessories for vintage computers

People, especially non-native English speakers, may not see both possible definitions. It makes no sense to attack people who only see one of the possible definitions. Can we have intellectual and educational conversations for once?

There is another category called "Vintage Computers, Parts & Accessories" which, IMO, should only include vintage (old) parts & accessories.

It does look like Majsta is being unfairly singled out considering how many people are posting new products in the "Vintage Computer Parts & Accessories" category.

Originally Posted by Akira

You must have not read the reason why majsta is putting those on eBay.
The reason is, to use the bid system.

I thought the reason for selling boards at higher prices was to raise funds for research, development and future production costs. I don't know why this requires a bid system unless it was desirable for advertising or to avoid being accused of price gouging. A "Buy Now" button at a lower price is a gain for the customer and loss for Ebay. Majsta originally wanted to provide early cards at a near break even price to help bring the Amiga back. I tried to tell him on the Apollo Forum back in the day to take a reasonable profit. He probably thought I was a greedy capitalist at the time but he has learned so much from being on the business side. He has a strong will and has persevered with handicaps where others with more skill and knowledge have failed. The world needs more moral capitalists.