Donation Voted Projects Proposed

[ivop]

Did you see my edit? I understand SIO ports are very expensive, but I think most people have a couple of 1010's they could use as a donor, if they wanted to. So, just not populate the footprint, but have it there on the PCB. @mytek did great with his hybrid footprint that can be populated with either an SIO jack, or a DB15 connector.

 

IMHO one port is the minimum. How weird would it be if SIO2IO did not include SIO, too?

Edited February 10, 2020 by ivop

[Gunstar]

While it may drive up costs, one source of SIO ports are the 3 that come with every APElink interface kit from B&C Computervisions, if dealers are sold out of SIO ports sold seperately. I have an extra SIO port from mine, because I configured my APElink to only two SIO ports and then connected SIO cable halves to the other spots, instead of just one. I also have an extra I can salvage from my 600XL salvage mobo. Non usable 1027's are another source of SIO ports, if anyone has one. Old 300 baud Atari modems is another salvage option. 

 

I agree at least one spot for the user to install an SIO port should be an option, we can fend for ourselves for SIO ports.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Gunstar

[+ZuluGula]

2 hours ago, Dropcheck said:

I think at least one issue is with the availability of those boards.  Zaxxon's boards are hard to come by here in the states.  And it appears while he is still producing them, it's not in any volume.   Ten here and there.  My contributions except for the SF551 board(a SF314 case drop-in board) don't natively support 3.5" drives, much less the slimline laptop drives that are dirt cheap now.

I think supply matches demand, at least in case of zaxon offerings. Something like a complete build disk drive must be quite an investment for hobbyist to keep them in stock all the time. I have seen him listing his products on auction sites, because of low interest on forums.

 

I agree on the availability of the hardware in the USA. Most of the expansions and mods must be sourced from Europe, which adds significant cost of shipping. Personally, I would like to see someone offering here more modern (SRAM) and affordable memory upgrades for our computers. Something like ttfh's 512kB for XL/XE and 48/52kb for 400. I personally don't like to pay $20+ shipping on one small ~$30 expansion board.

2 hours ago, Dropcheck said:

You can certainly debate whether it is needed and I hear you on that.  But at one point or another some 68 different flavors of Jello have graced our grocery store shelves, including Spam. ?   Currently there are 27 active flavors.  Surely we only need four flavors, grape, cherry, strawberry and watermelon. 

I'm fine with only one flavor, if it's bacon ???

[ivop]

12 minutes ago, ZuluGula said:

I personally don't like to pay $20+ shipping on one small ~$30 expansion board.

Yeah, that's ridiculous. I have done a run of multijoy8 boards and have sent a lot of them to the US, too.

 

Currently the costs for a bubble envelope from The Netherlands to the US are: (postnl.nl)

 

50-100g ---> €4,50

100-350g ---> €7,50

 

Add cost for the envelope itself, too, of course, but total should be well below $10,= US.

 

A 10x10 unpopulated PCB 1.6mm weighs about 32 grams.

 

If I were to send out populated multijoys, I just weighed one, including two cables of over 1m each: 186 grams.

 

Sorry, this is offtopic

[Mathy]

Hello guys (m/f)

 

Re: MIDI Thru: I haven't used it and may never do so.  But this piece of hardware is not being made just for me.  Somebody will likely need it some day.  Yes, you can use special cables, but a) here the heck is it when you need it and b) most of us have more than enough different cables.  And special cables cost special money.  Solving it in software takes up cycles or space in some programmable device.

 

And yes, preparing the PCB for connectors some of us want more than others would be fine.  For MIDI Thru and SIO.

 

Lenore is working together with other people.  Often with Jürgen, this time with Pasiu (not sure if Gramblicka is his last name or a different person).

 

I too want a cheap memory upgrade, but only if it's at least 1MB and works 100% like my 1MB upgrade.

 

With all those XF-clones (5.25" and 3.5"), I'd like to see a (Mega)Speedy upgrade for the original and all XF-reproductions.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[Marius]

2 hours ago, Mathy said:

Lenore is working together with other people.  Often with Jürgen, this time with Pasiu (not sure if Gramblicka is his last name or a different person).

 

Did you see in my initial post that I already mentioned that. This time I got the impression that it is about a single-person operation. Since she gives insight in the challenges a designer do face, I gave the suggestion to do cooperation again. I do not say it will go wrong, definitely not... but when I am honest, I see quite some half-baked expansions and other 'gadgets' in the atari 8bit scene, and from that point of view I see: please people more cooperation. 

Edited February 10, 2020 by Marius

[Dropcheck]

28 minutes ago, Marius said:

 

Did you see in my initial post that I already mentioned that. This time I got the impression that it is about a single-person operation. Since she gives insight in the challenges a designer do face, I gave the suggestion to do cooperation again. I do not say it will go wrong, definitely not... but when I am honest, I see quite some half-baked expansions and other 'gadgets' in the atari 8bit scene, and from that point of view I see: please people more cooperation. 

Marius is correct in that at this point this is a single developer approach.

 

However the problem right now is not how well a particular project is completed, but to determine demand and gather funds needed to complete the project.  Once the demand is determined by the donation vote, the funds are automatically in place creating the development cost constraints of the project.  At that point I can look for and engage in collaboration with the winning donor and others to minimize development and production costs and increase value. 

 

Collaboration, before a defined direction and development cost constraint is in place tends to lead to an overly complex and unworkable framework as everyone pushes to implement their particular pet desire/viewpoint.  Collaboration can be costly and time consuming, ask anyone who has engaged in or had to manage multiple collaborators scattered all over the globe in different time zones in different languages etc.   It can be fun and an effective tool to bring a product to market too.  But it is the next phase, not the one we are in right now.  

 

 

[+mytek]

Hardware MIDI-Thru: maybe ask for a show of hands as to who is presently using this (hint: take a poll). However I doubt its very much in use based on what's been available software-wise in the A8 scene. Keep in mind that none of the commercial interfaces BITD ever supported it and/or included it. And although there was one ABBUC offering many years ago that had it, you won't find a lot of those in the wild. Of course some of my recent projects, as well as ivop's had it, although personally I rarely used it other than running a few quick tests to see if it worked. And finally its not an end all if you don't include it, since there are ways to do it via other methods.

 

Sometimes you've got to go with your gut and ignore a good portion of the feature requests. If I didn't do this, there never would have been a 1088XEL or 1088XLD. And I've seen numerous projects bite the dust when the developer tried to please everyone.

 

[Marius]

Thanks for your detailed answer Dropcheck. I understand what you write!

[ivop]

16 hours ago, mytek said:

Of course some of my recent projects, as well as ivop's had it, although personally I rarely used it other than running a few quick tests to see if it worked.

That's exactly what I did. I wanted to be complete (IN/OUT/THRU), but THRU is/was hardly used in a studio setting, because of latency. Imagine 5-10 MIDI devices daisy chained, each filtering their own channel and react on it (i.e. play a sound). The first and the last device would not play in unison anymore. That's why MIDI hubs were invented.

 

MIDI THRU is fine with 2-3 devices. After that, it's a no go for musicians.

 

All IMHO ofcourse.
 

[Mathy]

Hello Michael

 

20 hours ago, mytek said:

And although there was one ABBUC offering many years ago that had it, you won't find a lot of those in the wild.

 

You obviously haven't been to a German Atari 8 bit meeting like the Fujiama, the NOMAM or the H.A.T.Z.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy  (who owns three himself)

[+mytek]

3 hours ago, Mathy said:

You obviously haven't been to a German Atari 8 bit meeting like the Fujiama, the NOMAM or the H.A.T.Z.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy  (who owns three himself)

I stand corrected on how many ABBUC based MIDI interfaces are in the wild .

 

And out of all those people, how many actively use the MIDI-THRU jack? Because that's really what matters the most to this discussion, not whether something has a certain feature, but whether enough people use it to justify its inclusion into a future product.

 

[Mathy]

Hello Michael

 

In this day and age and in the retro (Atari) scene you often have to "get it while you can".  Because by the time you need something, you might not be able to get it anymore.  That's why I want MIDI THRU in now.  Even if we have to solder in the MIDI THRU port later.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

Edited February 12, 2020 by Mathy

[+mytek]

1 hour ago, Mathy said:

In this day and age and in the retro (Atari) scene you often have to "get it while you can".  Because by the time you need something, you might not be able to get it anymore.  That's why I want MIDI THRU in now.  Even if we have to solder in the MIDI THRU port later.

Yes I see your point. But sometimes adding in all the possibilities that maybe only a few would use, just creates a bigger board, more cost, and can endanger the project as a result. That is why I asked how many of those ABBUC MIDI board owners were actually using the MIDI-THRU. Any idea?

 

[Mathy]

Hello Michael

 

Probably zero.  Most of us mainly use it for playing MIDI Maze at Atari 8 bit meetings.  But looking at the "picture" of the SIO2IO, there is ample space for a couple of extra connectors.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy 

[Marius]

As a professional musician I can add that it is not likely to have a midi thru on a computer side. The Atari ST did not even have a midi thru.

 

Midi thru is a way to link more musical instruments, which can also be done be crisscrossing in and out (and a setting in the musical device/instrument) or to use the midi thru on the musical device/instrument.

 

Is there a good usuable reason to add midi thru on an atari midi interface then?

 

By the way.... if someone would write a REAL sequencer (like cubase) where people could record multiple tracks separately and then play them back together (or even cooler playback a track and record a new one) then I would be highly interested in that. I got rid of all my ST's by donating them to a friend  but tbh I wished I kept 1 or 2 ST's for cubase. Much more fabulous would it be, to be able to do this with a8 of course.

[Potemkyn]

Neat idea!

 

I just saw this on your website, but could not comment there.

 

Mike

[Dropcheck]

Just another little update:

 

Not much has changed in the stats.  One more person weighed in on the SIO2IO project, but the XF551 Internal/External is still way in the lead for the donation amount.  Remember that is the winning project metric. 

 

There's still time to donation as little as $5 towards your favorite project. 

[+Allan]

I finally cast my vote. SIO2IO.

[+CharlieChaplin]

On 2/12/2020 at 10:36 PM, mytek said:

Yes I see your point. But sometimes adding in all the possibilities that maybe only a few would use, just creates a bigger board, more cost, and can endanger the project as a result. That is why I asked how many of those ABBUC MIDI board owners were actually using the MIDI-THRU. Any idea?

 

 

I have two of these Abbuc MIDI interfaces. Did not use them for many years. First usage was at last years HATZ meeting where I lended both of them to the (seven or eight) Midi Maze players. So, I do own them, but never used Midi thru, never used Midi myself. It's just too boring to play Midi Maze (or Maze of Agdagon or any other of the networking A8 games) alone and errmmm, I am not a musician...   The only use case I could think of is to playback some Midi sounds directly on the Atari...

 

[Dropcheck]

Current Status of Vote

 

In the lead for dollar amounts (the winning metric):

                                 

XF551 Versions with only 4 votes

 

Next up:

 

SIO2IO with 7 votes

 

Bringing up the rear

 

Wireless CX40 with only 1 vote

[ivop]

I know the rules where set in the first post, and no monies are returned, and I'm fine with that. As I understand it, in the end all donations go to the winning project. Here's an idea for the next time this kind of donation based project is initiated. Perhaps let donators make a top-3 list (in this case it's 3) instead of just voting for one project.  In my case, that would translate to: okay, if number 1, SIO2IO doesn't win, then my vote goes to number 2, the wireless CX40. And so on...

 

But I understand that it's difficult to make a choice if the votes have different "financial" backing. Five votes of a tenner for project A, versus, one vote of a hundred for project B.

[Dropcheck]

On 2/21/2020 at 4:25 PM, ivop said:

I know the rules where set in the first post, and no monies are returned, and I'm fine with that. As I understand it, in the end all donations go to the winning project. Here's an idea for the next time this kind of donation based project is initiated. Perhaps let donators make a top-3 list (in this case it's 3) instead of just voting for one project.  In my case, that would translate to: okay, if number 1, SIO2IO doesn't win, then my vote goes to number 2, the wireless CX40. And so on...

 

But I understand that it's difficult to make a choice if the votes have different "financial" backing. Five votes of a tenner for project A, versus, one vote of a hundred for project B.

I understand the desire to have as much flexibility as possible, but you could have 3x3 x the number of votes possible combinations.  There might be no clear choice.    Understand I'm not saying I won't eventually develop out the losing choices, but I wanted to concentrate on the one that has the most demand first.  

 

 

[Dropcheck]

On 2/21/2020 at 12:59 PM, Dropcheck said:

Current Status of Vote

 

In the lead for dollar amounts (the winning metric):

                                 

XF551 Versions with only 4 votes

 

Next up:

 

SIO2IO with 7 votes

 

Bringing up the rear

 

Wireless CX40 with only 1 vote

 

Nothing has really changed.  Still have a little over a month until the final day.

[Dropcheck]

On 2/21/2020 at 12:59 PM, Dropcheck said:

Current Status of Vote

 

In the lead for dollar amounts (the winning metric):

                                 

XF551 Versions with only 4 votes

 

Next up:

 

SIO2IO with 7 votes

 

Bringing up the rear

 

Wireless CX40 with only 1 vote

 

I realize that this is not the most important thing on most people's mind.  Hopefully the country will be a little more stable in the coming weeks.  By then I suspect we'll all want something else to think about and look forward too.  Voting is still open for at least three more weeks.