Just got my SDrive Max...A thing of beauty..

[Mclaneinc]

 

 

Lovely made, the little white spot on the pic above the USB connector isn't actually on there, it was a bit of dust.

 

The guy was very very helpful and arrived exactly when he said it would.....Needless to say the actual item is great to use..Mega happy with it, so much more fun than a SD2USB

 

So if you are in the UK and fancy one I cannot but recommend this person.

 

£43.00 plus 5.00 (fast) delivery 

 

http://tiny.cc/f8am8y

 

Thankfully you can't see all my desk, its a tinkerers desk so ultra messy...Just my SD adaptor and Switch jig..

 

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Mclaneinc

[Mr Robot]

Ooh I like the XE style case! 

 

I haven't seen an SIO2UNO mounted like that before, pretty neat!

[Mclaneinc]

Nice to offer an XL and XE style case, almost went for the XL but its with an XE so thought I'd match it...

 

Not stopped playing with it since it turned up today...

[Gunstar]

I still have to get mine up and running. Well, my first I just couldn't get programmed, no matter what I tried, and set it aside for a few months and I got another, different brand, to see if I can get it working so I know for sure it is a faulty device on my first or something I'm doing wrong or my PC is screwed up some how. But I've just been too busy to set up the new one yet, plus I still need to get an SIO cable for it, I don't feel like de-soldering the one on my first. But I've got a sh*t load of projects I'm juggling at the moment, and hardly any time for any of them outside of my real life responsibilities. It's down the to-do list a bit for my hobby projects, and that list is way down the list of my real-life projects...too little time!

[+slx]

Looks very nice in XE style! What's the switch for?

[+DrVenkman]

12 minutes ago, slx said:

Looks very nice in XE style! What's the switch for?

My guess is SIO vs External power. 

[Mclaneinc]

Sorry, missed those, yes its for the ext PSU..

[SS]

I really like the XE style casing.  It would look really great sitting next to a 65XE or 130XE.  Fantastic!

 

I just got my upgraded SDrive-MAX back myself.  It was modded by Gavin1968 to allow for communication with the other devices in my SIO chain.  It works great now. He also made me a beautiful white and black casing to match my XLs.  With this new upgrade,  I think that the SDrive-MAX might well become my main input device and my SIO2SD may take a backseat for a while. 

[Kyle22]

Does anyone make a beige 400/800 style case for it?

 

[Farb]

Agreed that the XE-style case is nice! Is there a 3D model for it available?

[Mclaneinc]

Hi Farb, just asked the guy and its his own design but will release it to me in a couple of months, when I get the link I'll pass it on..

[Farb]

Sounds good. I'm hoping he'll contribute back to the community given what he is selling.

[+slx]

On 6/22/2019 at 1:44 AM, Kyle22 said:

Does anyone make a beige 400/800 style case for it?

Thought about that, too. Either 820 sized with the screen on the front and lots of air behind  (although one could use it as PSU storage for the other machines) or maybe better like a mini-810 with the screen on top. Front and back plates could be printed separately in dark brown and top and bottom would just need to differ in the studs and cutouts but could be symmetrical otherwise. Unfortunately my 3D design skills are very basic so far. 

 

Any design should have some kind of stylus stowage. 

[800_Rocks]

Just got my SDriveMax last week.  Have not had much time on it.  So far I am very pleased.  A great improvement would be if the little stylus pen had a built-in docking spot on the case!!!

[Mr Robot]

11 minutes ago, 800_Rocks said:

Just got my SDriveMax last week.  Have not had much time on it.  So far I am very pleased.  A great improvement would be if the little stylus pen had a built-in docking spot on the case!!!

There is a version of the case with that on it. The designer of the case has chosen to not share the designs even though it is based on something they only had access to because someone chose to share it. 

 

Some people are just greedy.

[SS]

On 6/21/2019 at 7:02 AM, Mclaneinc said:

The guy was very very helpful and arrived exactly when he said it would.....Needless to say the actual item is great to use..Mega happy with it, so much more fun than a SD2USB

 

So if you are in the UK and fancy one I cannot but recommend this person.

 

£43.00 plus 5.00 (fast) delivery 

 

http://tiny.cc/f8am8y

I see that his eBay page says "185 sold".  I know that Gavin1968 has sold over 100 of his own.  I'm not sure how many The Brewing Acadamy has produced.  And of course there are a lot of people who have put together their own units.  So how many SDrive-MAXs do you think are out there in the wild?  400?  500?  Certainly a lot more than I would have guessed for our rather niche portion of the retro computer world. 

[SS]

4 hours ago, 800_Rocks said:

A great improvement would be if the little stylus pen had a built-in docking spot on the case!!!

I stuck two of these on the side of my case in order to clip my stylus onto.  Not perfect but it works.

[Farb]

6 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

There is a version of the case with that on it. The designer of the case has chosen to not share the designs even though it is based on something they only had access to because someone chose to share it.

So we've got one person who has already sold 185 S-Drive Max units in a nice custom case that won't share the design yet (maybe in a couple of months). Another has made useful alterations to a community case design and won't share them. And still others are selling what sounds like hundreds of S-Drive Max's at $75-$100 per unit -- are they contributing anything back?

 

Everything they are doing is built on the hard work of members of the Atari community that have chosen to give their contributions away for free.

 

Hearing things like this makes it very difficult to continue to put work into this project ☹️

[SS]

46 minutes ago, Farb said:

still others are selling what sounds like hundreds of S-Drive Max's at $75-$100 per unit -- are they contributing anything back?

I would say that the contribution of the people building and selling the SDrive-MAX is in providing a service for me (and others) that I feel unable and/or inadequately prepared to do for myself. I would not expect them to provide this service at no compensation. Could I have managed it on my own?  Perhaps. Did I feel prepared to do so?  No, not at this time.  If it were not for Gavin's assistance, I would not be able to enjoy this fantastic device that you (Farb) and others have put so much effort into.  I am very grateful for both sides of this process. 

[Mr Robot]

2 hours ago, Farb said:

So we've got one person who has already sold 185 S-Drive Max units in a nice custom case that won't share the design yet (maybe in a couple of months). Another has made useful alterations to a community case design and won't share them. And still others are selling what sounds like hundreds of S-Drive Max's at $75-$100 per unit -- are they contributing anything back?

 

Everything they are doing is built on the hard work of members of the Atari community that have chosen to give their contributions away for free.

 

Hearing things like this makes it very difficult to continue to put work into this project ☹️

I've had this very discussion with one person selling SDMax's (with my SIO2UNO in it) who initially said they wouldn't share but after 'discussing' it with them they agreed to give their modified case STL's to anyone who asked. I don't think they say anywhere on their website or anything that the offer has been made so I don't expect anyone would know to ask. 

 

There is at least one other person on ebay selling sdmax's with a custom XE style case who isn't sharing the plans and another custom case with a embossed logo on the front and a fuji cutout on the back who also hasn't put the designs anywhere I can find publicly. 

 

Some people just weren't taught to share when they were kids. I have no problem with people making a buck off the hard work others give away freely to others, I feel they are filling a need in the community for those without the skills/time/equipment to do it themselves but it really annoys me that they take an open source computer, use open source software, an open source mod board and an open source case design, sell the resulting product but refuse to open source the (usually minor) changes they made to the project themselves. 

 

We all benefit if we all share. It just seems greedy.

 

[_The Doctor__]

Very true... anybody who wants to buy their offering would still do so even if the case files were public like the rest of the project.

[darwinmac]

I agree with @SS here. In my case, I have no soldering skills. If people like Gavin and MacRorie weren’t providing pre-built models, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. 

 

I have no problem with them making money off of their building skills.

 

Bob C

[Mr Robot]

I don’t think anybody reasonable has a problem with then making money off of their effort. It’s them not sharing back whatever new thing they may add to the project that people have a problem with. 

[darwinmac]

2 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

I don’t think anybody reasonable has a problem with then making money off of their effort. It’s them not sharing back whatever new thing they may add to the project that people have a problem with. 

I understand that and it’s unfortunate, but some people are different than others. I wish that people would share their changes, but it doesn’t always happen. 

 

I just wanted to add my voice that I appreciate all of the work done for free to bring Sdrive Max to fruition. I would hate to see the lack of these contributions to dishearten people who have worked hard on this product. 

 

Right now, since no one has been named, a prospective buyer has no way to know if they are buying from someone who gives back to the community or not. You could try to examine each design to see who you’re dealing with.

 

However, most of us simply want to buy the device from someone who makes good stuff that’ll last. 

 

Bob C

[Farb]

6 hours ago, SS said:

I would say that the contribution of the people building and selling the SDrive-MAX is in providing a service for me (and others) that I feel unable and/or inadequately prepared to do for myself.

This will ultimately be a matter of opinion and perspective. Keep in mind that I am not the creator or maintainer of the S-Drive Max project and am not speaking for the project itself. I am merely someone who has contributed a significant amount of effort to improving it.

 

I agree these sellers are providing a helpful paid service to the subset of the community that can't or won't assemble the device themselves. I don't fault them for wanting to make some money doing it. But that is not, in my opinion, contributing back to the project. I would hope that those who monetize any open-source project contribute something back to that project directly. These contributions can take many forms depending on the skills of the people involved: code/hardware design contributions, knowledge sharing, community support, monetary donations, etc. Red Hat has created a very profitable business with this approach -- they create paid products using various open source projects. The thing that keeps them from simply being a company profiting off the hard work of others is that they funnel some of those profits to pay teams of developers that contribute improvements and bug fixes back to those open source projects.

 

What is unacceptable to me, however, is people selling SDM devices with enhancements and refusing to contribute back those enhancements (or creating barriers to open sharing) to retain some sort of competitive advantage. That is simply a slap in the face to those who gave their project contributions away for free and is exactly the type of thing that many open source licenses try to prevent.

 

Anyway, I've said my peace and won't belabor this point any further.