Buffee the Vampire Slayer...

[exxos]

I'm not calling the project BS. I just agree with exxos that the prices seem optimistically low.

Indeed. But it isn't just production costs, I mean they will have to do prototypes and could end up doing several pcb runs + parts + taxes, faulty boards etc etc. That prices has to be taken into account (at least for me it would) in the final sale price.. If they wanted to get their money back at least.

I am used to low volume sales. I said many times my V2.2 booster (6 layers) ended up costing me £1,000 easily in PCB runs and parts just during development. I only just ( I presume) managed to get the money back on few sales there was. So from my point of view, in effect boards do cost a lot to produce in like quantities of 10. Though its likely higher volume sales in Amiga land, so 100+ boards could be done at a lower cost, but that's going to be some huge capital just the same.



@go0se
I hope "they" can pull it off for the quoted price. I hope that is the price point.. To be clear nobody is against it..Though the skepticism is no apparent real code (yet ?) and still nobody know if its even ST compatible ? In Atari land people make big promises and nothing happens. look at all the vampire hype ongoing for years. AFAIK there is still no Atari vampire. So us Atari people are very skeptical about many projects because its the norm for us. Rinse and repeat year after year.

I think the Atari guys should ask such questions before getting excited over this project. Amiga projects rarely get transferred to Atari land. Plus Atari's are way more temperamental than Amigas (@terriblefire mentioned this many times) so even if they do a Atari port, they will have a lot of headaches. I mean why do you think we all went to the trouble of designing a new motherboard for starters..

I am also skeptical of a Atari version because of low volume sales. I mean AFAIK there are probably 10 TF536's running on Ataris'. I guess 1,000+ TF536 PCB's have sold in Amiga land. Yes I know its the same hardware, but time will have to be spent doing Atari firmware and doing all the debugging etc, but I honestly think nobody will put the effort into it when the Atari market is nowhere near what Amiga stuff is.

So more than happy the project exists, as do others. There are just a lot of questions and not many answers currently.

[MegaSTEarian]

One big difference between Amiga accelerators and Atari ones is that Amiga needs no hardware skills to install one. On the other hand you almost any Atari add-on needs some cables connection or even worse soldering.
The only ones I've seen that don't require either is MonSTer, Lightning and of course the VOFA drivers. Surely the conclusion here does not change the reality that sales are a lot lower. But it seems that the guys are aiming to all three alive 680x0 platforms.

[DoG]

One big difference between Amiga accelerators and Atari ones is that Amiga needs no hardware skills to install one. On the other hand you almost any Atari add-on needs some cables connection or even worse soldering.
The only ones I've seen that don't require either is MonSTer, Lightning and of course the VOFA drivers. Surely the conclusion here does not change the reality that sales are a lot lower. But it seems that the guys are aiming to all three alive 680x0 platforms.

In a ST? You need to have a 64 pin socket for them to attach so you would need to solder then.

[MegaSTEarian]

One big difference between Amiga accelerators and Atari ones is that Amiga needs no hardware skills to install one. On the other hand you almost any Atari add-on needs some cables connection or even worse soldering.
The only ones I've seen that don't require either is MonSTer, Lightning and of course the VOFA drivers. Surely the conclusion here does not change the reality that sales are a lot lower. But it seems that the guys are aiming to all three alive 680x0 platforms.

In a ST? You need to have a 64 pin socket for them to attach so you would need to solder then.

Not sure which one exactly needs soldering but I was mainly talking about my STE/MegaSTE/TT experience with the said hardware, MonSTer on the STE/MegaSTE, Lightning and VOFA on the MegaSTE/TT.

[DoG]

Not sure which one exactly needs soldering but I was mainly talking about my STE/MegaSTE/TT experience with the said hardware, MonSTer on the STE/MegaSTE, Lightning and VOFA on the MegaSTE/TT.

Got it. Yes. Thunder/Storm/Lightning/Nova is easy to install on a TT/MegaSTe since it has port/sockets for it.

IDE boards or MonSTer on STe are pretty easy to install since the 68k processor is in socket..

Amiga has almost everything in sockets or has ports for expansion which does it much easier to expand.

[go0se]

@exxos I think it boils down to what your motivations are. To my knowledge no one got or expected to be paid to modify the TF536 firmware for the Atari. It was done, as far as I'm aware from reading the threads here, for passion not profit.

It would be the same, I assume, for this project, these guys *(will have)* produced the hardware and done 80% of the heavy lifting to get it functioning on any DIP64 68000 platform. Even if they don't drop a fully functioning variation that compensates for the idiosyncrasies of an Atari. If they open the sources, as they claim they will then someone with passion to see it on Atari can do the rest.

I don't know what motivates these guys, perhaps they are affluent and are doing it purely for personal satisfaction and the knowledge gained. Perhaps they are driven by hate and have remortgaged their homes and are pumping everything into this and selling at a loss to ensure that no one ever has the misfortune to buy an Apollo product again. Or perhaps they have no intention of releasing anything and just want to kick up a storm.

I appreciate the scepticism. Amiga people got their collective chubs on when Mike Stirling dropped a 3D render of his proposed Amiga DIP64 accelerator:

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=14 ... tcount=399

But nothing more has come from that since apart from some marketing chat from Kipper2k.

The comments on this thread range from positivity and hope through cautious optimism to cautious pessimism to sneering negativity.

@exxos and @cmorley are right to question the numbers, but from what I can see there is nothing that hoists a red flag if you don't expect to be creaming big margins on each sale. I do however question the idea of releasing a suggested retail price for something that doesn't yet have a prototype. Cart before the horse...

We should get behind @TheNameOfTheGame who seems prepared to send them one of his machines with the aim of helping them to get this thing onto Atari. He might never see that machine again or get any return for it but that's a noble sacrifice.

[exxos]

The comments on this thread range from positivity and hope through cautious optimism to cautious pessimism to sneering negativity.

Maybe so. . But if it really comes down to blatant bashing of any projects, its actually against forum rules. If the whole thread is overall negative or bashing, I will just delete it and have done with it. I don't think any posters or indeed myself are doing that. But of course any concerns can be taken up with any of the moderator team for review.

[MegaSTEarian]

Not meaning to step on toes but I think go0se meant the EAB thread. Of course I agree with the general "no bashing" policy.

[exxos]

Not meaning to step on toes but I think go0se meant the EAB thread. Of course I agree with the general "no bashing" policy.

I think it's pretty standard for topics to descend into chaos on other forums. I have not read it. But I just wanted to say such things are not tolerated here. I for one don't want to read 50 pages of abuse / arguments or overall negativity. Had enough of that for the past 20 years. Such threads are just not nice / enjoyable to read.

[sporniket]

I admit that my posts here have a shade of mockery. However it is also -I mean mainly- toward myself as I truly have the fantasy to synthetize (pun intended) by myself the next generation of 68k in vhdl, and that I am painfully trying to implement an adder https://www.edaplayground.com/x/TjgZ



edit: added in italics