New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers

[ShK]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

apart from plain wrong things that I've read, like "one CF->IDE adapter is faster than the other

Speed issue was between CF->IDE and SD->IDE adapters. But, yes, this is wrong thread for this.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by dJOS

Good idea, perhaps it might be easier to intergrate that into a plastic case?

You are free to make a case for yourself, or even create a business off of it. I've written it numerous times, and I'm willing to repeat it just for you: The ACA500 will not be delivered with a case, because the target price does not allow it. End of discussion.

Jens

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

You are free to make a case for yourself, or even create a business off of it. I've written it numerous times, and I'm willing to repeat it just for you: The ACA500 will not be delivered with a case, because the target price does not allow it. End of discussion.

Jens

I'm not trying to annoy you, just wondered if you had to get a moulding made for the support if it was worth taking it one step further?

I'd luv to make the cases myself however I'm currently unemployed and feeding my family using my severance package.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by dJOS

I'd luv to make the cases myself however I'm currently unemployed

You appear to have ideas that you are really convinced of. Instead of giving away those valuable ideas of "how to do&make things better", I suggest to turn them into a business, and make those ideas business secrets.

Jens

[dJOS]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

You appear to have ideas that you are really convinced of. Instead of giving away those valuable ideas of "how to do&make things better", I suggest to turn them into a business, and make those ideas business secrets.

Jens

Hehe, yeah trust me I'm working on a business plan, I need a job to support my family in the mean time tho.

Ps, I wouldn't be competing with you and the other electronics guru's tho, building things isn't my forte, I project manage technical staff.

[Schoenfeld]

Here's another idea for standoff and mechanical CF card support. So far, it's my favourite, because it's light (aluminium, weight only 11.9 grams), mounting time is only slightly longer than the initial idea, it's affordable, the completely-mounted unit fits the retail boxes, and you really need to use way too much force to break off a CF card with this. That's why it's my favourite so far ;-)

Jens

[Photon]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

You are free to make a case for yourself, or even create a business off of it. I've written it numerous times, and I'm willing to repeat it just for you: The ACA500 will not be delivered with a case, because the target price does not allow it. End of discussion.

Jens

And you can be sure that if I buy an external card, it will not be exposed and I will not cover it up with something that looks as bad as an exposed card.

As mentioned by me in my post yesterday, a solution could be to get in touch with someone who's offered to make cases separately and get them available via the same web shop.

Kipper2k needs only the dimensions and hole placements. Why not get in touch with him?

[bubbob42]

I think it's quite difficult to make a case for the card which will safisfy every preference:



Here we have ACA500, ACA1232, Subway. One could replace the Subway with the planned USB/Network module (whose dimensions are unknown, to date) and add a Delfina instead. That would need a really big case.

Others would perhaps only want to plug the basic ACA500 (you don't need anything else for comfortable classic democoding ) and prefer a smaller case. Maybe it's not the time for nailing case specs, yet.

Knowing the community a bit, I'd guess there will be multiple solutions...or none. There will be complaints in any "case".

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

You answered that yourself: CF can work with the existing drivers, SD can't. If you're willing to pay for driver development and hardware re-design, let me know. Otherwise, let me assure you that CF may be a little harder to find than SD, but won't die out any time soon. There are too many industrial uses and high-end digital cameras that use CF.

Jens

No need to take it personally, I was far from criticizing your work

I was obviously referring to having a little SD controller onboard (like this one) which takes care of the SD-to-ATA conversion transparently. But I guess that would raise the BOM.

And thus I've answered myself yet again Enough off-topic, and thanks again for all the things you do for the Amiga, Jens

[moijk]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

I think it's quite difficult to make a case for the card which will safisfy every preference:

The suggested GVP HD8+ style (which looks '90 and compliments the amiga 500 look) ought to fit everything you need and still keep it retro looking. Don't see the need for a smaller case - the board is as wide as it is and the amiga is as tall as it is. Not a larger either. for usb you could either have ports in the case or make your own if needed. your setup however is probably rather unusual.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by moijk

Don't see the need for a smaller case

It must fit the retail box.

Besides, all you guys here are pretty high-end users, and you probably don't mind paying more for the case than for the unit itself.

The GVP case is *expensive*. It consists of multiple parts (metal and plastic), and I tried to contact Mike from GVP about it. He kept me waiting quite long, lured me into buying a few chips that turned out to be completely useless (wasted a good 1000,- EUR on humid chips), complained that I've put some pressure on him after being almost half a year late delivering these units and still - almost a year later - didn't come up with any information about the GVP casing.

In short: Consider "everything GVP" to be lost. The person behind it is IMHO not a business(-worthy) person.

Jens

[moijk]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

It must fit the retail box.

Besides, all you guys here are pretty high-end users, and you probably don't mind paying more for the case than for the unit itself.

I was thinking about the style, not the exact same case. And as "after marked case". It's a substantial case, thats right. And it doesn't exactly give access to the cf cards. But it is flush with the a500 - which looks nice. esp compared to the tall a590 or the boxy alfa data hard drive.

Pity to hear about the experience.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

It must fit the retail box.

Besides, all you guys here are pretty high-end users, and you probably don't mind paying more for the case than for the unit itself.

The GVP case is *expensive*. It consists of multiple parts (metal and plastic), and I tried to contact Mike from GVP about it. He kept me waiting quite long, lured me into buying a few chips that turned out to be completely useless (wasted a good 1000,- EUR on humid chips), complained that I've put some pressure on him after being almost half a year late delivering these units and still - almost a year later - didn't come up with any information about the GVP casing.

In short: Consider "everything GVP" to be lost. The person behind it is IMHO not a business(-worthy) person.

Jens

Agree. I would like to avoid having a chunky brick next to my Amiga this time around if I can

The point about the case was that someone else would make it and the webshop that sells ACA500 could sell it as an accessory. So it would fit in its own retail box.

There's an inherent problem with putting it outside, as bubbob42 shows.

But I would think the majority would buy it for the IDE+RAM, so a case that fits around that would make many happy.

[bubbob42]

Originally Posted by moijk

your setup however is probably rather unusual.

Why that? From experience: Typical Amigans won't stop, until every connector available has been used for something. Just because it's there.

[crasbe]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

Why that? From experience: Typical Amigans won't stop, until every connector available has been used for something. Just because it's there.

You should add the RTC to the ACA12xx

[bubbob42]

Originally Posted by crasbe

You should add the RTC to the ACA12xx

Unnecessary, I get the time via NTP.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by crasbe

You should add the RTC to the ACA12xx

Please note that the RTC on an A1200 accelerator can not be accessed by the A500. That's the reason why I have made it optional on my new A1200 accelerators.

The A500 has it's RTC on the trapdoor expansion.

Jens

[attle]

Any way this card could work inside A2000 with a CPU-slot adaptor?

[moijk]

Originally Posted by bubbob42

Why that? From experience: Typical Amigans won't stop, until every connector available has been used for something. Just because it's there.

I should disagree on this to keep my point valid, but I don't feel like lying..

[Photon]

Didn't bother with that one since it takes 5 seconds of thinking to see that it's a false overstatement ...to make some kind of joke?

Serial, parallel, RF, even composite and DF1 are rarely used today.

My prediction is that the second CF slot will be used very rarely on ACA500. It's not much use if you can't remove it, put files on it, and put it back without turning off your Amiga. You could use it to get a couple more GB storage for all the mp3s and videos you're going to play offline on your A500...