Relief Pitcher

[eric_ruck]

Definite maybe, especially if its complete or at least mostly complete and playable. Depends on my finances at the time of release.

 

Eric

[The_Laird]

What is happening with this? I would still love to see it!

[EricDeLee]

If the game is up to snuff and you can produce the cart/chips to do it and it comes in nice packaging, I'd pay between $40-$50 for it.

1008843[/snapback]

 

I would be interested at the same price point. I won't spend over $50 for a Lynx game.

 

 

I personally have a hard time spending over $25 for a Lynx game. But... that's just me.

 

I love the Lynx, but when my entire collection came to me at a cost of about $1-$1.50 a game... I find it hard to pay the price of $40 or $50 a game. I've got about 60 games I'm getting ready to buy at about $2.00-$2.50 a game. I have a hard time to swallow that... but I keep telling myself it is a steal (which it is).

 

But... regardless... eventually I'd be interested. But I'd like to see reviews and then possibly see it cheaper. Offer a box-less/manual-less version for $25. I'll buy it then.

[Godzilla]

just a note, ill buy one :-)

[chris_lynx1989]

just a note, ill buy one :-)

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the replies that we have received from "some" that seem to have an interest in seeing this game come to the

light of day.We seem to have a few stumbling blocks that are holding us up from doing this for the lynx masses at large

out there. 1.) It appears we all love the Lynx and all that,just the fact that the Atari market is dead as a doornail is a bit

of a problem nowadays---just call and talk to Lance/Video 61 at: 651-462-2500 for the yummy details on the Atari marketplace that now exists for Atari products of all types! Business is dead,dead,dead.

2.) The price of EPROMs for this at last look appears to be a bit prohitive--$17.90 a piece.(The boards i can get for in the

range of $5.00 each U.S.)

3.)The interest we've seen this year in this on AA has disappointed both Lance and me,as well.

4.)Have been told that other Atari vendors/developers are holding back as well on their things to release this year,so we

are doing the same.Sorry. You don't see Telegames doing stuff for the Lynx anymore,do you? Not enough money and

interest from folks now to warrant doing it at all.They have not done a Lynx game in years,that i'm aware of,have they?

 

 

There is just not enough interest shown by folks to warrant our doing this for you that have shown interest in it.Yes,it is a

bummer moment for us all.We had some grand plans of doing several releases for the old Lynx in 2006,too!! More's the

real pity here for all of us.Sorry,folks.

[YOK-dfa]

Why not do a budget release of the game? $50+ is quite steep for most people. Chip + board = $22.90. Add a few bucks for other small supplies and you could sell the game for something like $29.99. I'm sure you are going to get more interest if the price is right...

[+karri]

What the community really needs is a new kind of PCB that uses some kind of boot-flash technology that is found in inexpensive devices like mobile phones etc.

 

The only important thing is that the flash needs to be programmable with a sequence 0x40 + address,data instead of the traditional $aaa $555 sequence. This allows you to program the chip using a slightly modified Lynx as a programmer.

 

Then we could have a bigger run at some cheap factory and everybody could buy preassembled blank carts. Making your own labels, box or manuals with a color laser on demand is not that hard.

 

I would also prefer 1MB chips as they allow a bit more space compared to the 256k in use today. (Alpine Games used 512k).

 

Perhaps the chip could be bought cheap from some surplus store (I have seen prices like $3-$6/chip for some obsolete components).

 

To finance this we could put up a small "company". One "share" of this new hw company could equal around 100 blank carts. Lynx developers could invest some money in it now and buy as many "shares" as they believe they need. Once a good proto exists we could use the money and convert the shares to boards that we ship to the developers.

 

The point is that this should get the cost for making a release to a minimum without having one person take all the risks.

 

And if the market is dead,dead,dead with $30-$50/cart then perhaps it is time to change strategy and get the price down,down,down. One way to find out how much people are willing to pay for Relief Pitcher is to put it on cart and sell it on ebay with the minimum price set at "no profit".

 

If this idea is good we need to find the right people to do this. Someone working in a pcb-manufacturing plant? Someone with good relations who could buy small StrataFlash boot-chips cheap and be able to get a few samples to get the proto done?

--

 

karri

[Matthias]

Hello!

 

IMHO a big part of the reason why the Atari-market is shrinking (drying out, collapsing) is,

that not enough new products are released. If nothing new is released after some months

people loose the rest of their interest in these old consoles and seldomly come back.

So my suggestion is, chris_lynx1989, if you do have a finished product, release it!

 

Best regards

Matthias

[semicolo]

what chips are you using ? standard 2Mbit 32-plcc 55ns flashes cost about 3 $ (canadian), 4Mbit 32-dip 100ns OTProm cost about 5$ (9$ at 70ns).

 

What's with the 0xaaa, 0x555 algorithm karri ? (does not suit the lynx's addressing mode ?)

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Hello!

 

IMHO a big part of the reason why the Atari-market is shrinking (drying out, collapsing) is,

that not enough new products are released. If nothing new is released after some months

people loose the rest of their interest in these old consoles and seldomly come back.

So my suggestion is, chris_lynx1989, if you do have a finished product, release it!

 

Best regards

Matthias

 

I agree with that. I've seen this happen many times where something is announced, there is all sorts of excitement but when nothing is heard for a long time, the excitement dies down and I'm sure that affects sales as well. I'm interested in more titles for the Lynx. Although I do admit that baseball games aren't my thing. But I am interested in stuff like Distant Lands and UltraVore. Interested enough to buy them.

Edited June 15, 2006 by Shaggy the Atarian

[else]

Why not do a budget release of the game? $50+ is quite steep for most people. Chip + board = $22.90. Add a few bucks for other small supplies and you could sell the game for something like $29.99. I'm sure you are going to get more interest if the price is right...

 

I'll second that. A buget release like this is the way to go. I would be in for something in the $20 to $30 range. $50 is too steep for me. We've been spoiled with the abundance of Lynx games that can be had cheap.....

[+karri]

what chips are you using ? standard 2Mbit 32-plcc 55ns flashes cost about 3 $ (canadian), 4Mbit 32-dip 100ns OTProm cost about 5$ (9$ at 70ns).

 

What's with the 0xaaa, 0x555 algorithm karri ? (does not suit the lynx's addressing mode ?)

 

I can use any flashes from the E28F-series. So far E28F128 (128Mbit) and E28F640 (64Mbit). I was hoping to find cheap 28F800 (8Mbit) or 28F160 (16Mbit) type chips. Or easiest would be 28F320 (32Mbit) in a 56 pin TSOP. It would fit my current board directly. It does not matter if they operate on 5V or 3.6V. Both work fine.

 

The problem with 0xaaa, 0x555 algorithm is that it requires random access to the chip. But the Lynx can only access the memory locations sequentially. With a 0x40 mode you can interlace the command and the data. So you can write the entire area in 2 passes. First odd bytes and then even bytes. I have a cc65-driver with read/write/erase/lock/unlock functionality in asm for the Lynx.

 

If you find any flash accepting 0x40 type programming, 8 bit data bus and 2Mbit or more for less than 6$ then I believe it would be worth doing a board for it.

--

 

Karri

Edited June 16, 2006 by karri

[chris_lynx1989]

what chips are you using ? standard 2Mbit 32-plcc 55ns flashes cost about 3 $ (canadian), 4Mbit 32-dip 100ns OTProm cost about 5$ (9$ at 70ns).

 

What's with the 0xaaa, 0x555 algorithm karri ? (does not suit the lynx's addressing mode ?)

 

 

The chip of choice appears to be a TC574000AD-150 or an equivalent one of this 4Mb type.This is what doing an RP cart

does require,i don't think cutting corners is going to do us all much good on this.Thanks for the interest.

[chris_lynx1989]

Why not do a budget release of the game? $50+ is quite steep for most people. Chip + board = $22.90. Add a few bucks for other small supplies and you could sell the game for something like $29.99. I'm sure you are going to get more interest if the price is right...

 

I'll second that. A buget release like this is the way to go. I would be in for something in the $20 to $30 range. $50 is too steep for me. We've been spoiled with the abundance of Lynx games that can be had cheap.....

 

 

 

This is all well and fine for discussion guys and sounds good on the lynx forum and all that,but it does not look good on

paper if you look at the expenses we see before it even goes in the box to be shipped off to someone out there in the

Lynx loving world.I can itemize it all for you here,if you all are interested:

Here goes---(these are the last figures we had on this in March '06)

 

1.) TC574000AD-150 EPROM 17.90

2.) 4 Mb/512K Lynx board 5.00

3.) Solder charge per unit 10.00

4.) Color manual/art 2.00

5.) Clamshell package/box 3.00

6. Shipping/Insurance (which

is usually "free" to folks that

order from Video 61) 6.50

 

Total $44.40

 

 

Now this is all i can think of at the moment for cost,this includes no profit to either of us on this being offered to you lynxers out there.Can someone offer me an idea of how we can offer the lynx masses a "bargain cart" offering to just get this thing just out the door and released to everyone that "might" want to buy a copy?Please come forward and be heard on this matter.How do you make something for $44/45.00 dollars U.S. and offer it for sale for $29.95?Is this sound

business sense?We are not living in 1990/91 anymore with the Lynx being the hot new color handheld unit to have in the

gaming world.This is 2006 and we have the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS as the handhelds of choice now,even the Apple

iPod to boot.The Lynx rather pales compared to these in 2006,i think.I'm still a closet lynxer yet,though. --the lynxer

[YOK-dfa]

Can someone offer me an idea of how we can offer the lynx masses a "bargain cart" offering to just get this thing just out the door and released to everyone that "might" want to buy a copy?Please come forward and be heard on this matter.

Well, i don't know. In your starting post you mention that the costs are going to be at least $50. Most replies in this thread state that people are interested in the release, but not for $50 (or more). So to me it seems logical that somehow you have to cut some costs.

 

Drop the manual and box art (just put the designs on a webpage somewhere where people can download them and print them themselves. That saves about $5,- according to your specs. Leave out the shipping at first. I know that you have to pay it eventually, but at least the cart would *look* cheaper

Also (but i'm not an expert on this, so i might be totally wrong) $10 for soldering a socket to the board seems a little steep. Maybe if you shop around you can find someone who can do it cheaper. That would give you a price of $22.90 + costs for soldering etc. To me it seems it's not impossible to release this cart for $29.99 (excl. shipping ofcourse).

 

Just to make it clear: I'm not bashing you or anything nor do i claim to know everything about how to release Lynx games but i think that most people are not willing to pay full price for lynx games anymore...

 

*still hoping this gets released*

Edited June 16, 2006 by YOK-dfa

[+karri]

Unfortunately there is still one factor you have to take into consideration. You never get 100% of the boards to work. My experience is that 97% is a very good yield. I would base the cost calculation on 80% working carts. Then you have a chance to replace stuff free of charge. So you need to multiply the hw cost by 1.2.

 

Hand assembling a dip-component is expensive. It is much cheaper to use just one surface mounted chip and assemble all the carts on a pallette at once by a robot. Keeping the carts together during the soldering process is a good thing. Starting a run costs a fortune. So we can do the assembly run only once.

 

It also reduces total costs to use rewritable chips in a design like this. You don't lose carts while doing protos if you can erase the chip.

 

From Chris calculations the largest costs are assembly work and the memory chip. So these are the things that should be optimized. I still want the box, a manual and the artistic label on the cart.

 

Before the cart is sold the price will double anyway. Shops want a small profit as well as the people who do the packaging, shipping, design etc. Even Chris should be able to afford a cup of coffee after the job is done. So the goal is to get the hw closer to $10 than to $20.

 

My suggestion is already written previously in this thread. The first job is to locate the perfect 1MB chip, getting a sample of it and verifying that it works. You then connect all the data and address lines to it and also the Audio I/O line for bank switching. With this design you can run any kind of Lynx image on the cart.

--

 

Karri

[chris_lynx1989]

Can someone offer me an idea of how we can offer the lynx masses a "bargain cart" offering to just get this thing just out the door and released to everyone that "might" want to buy a copy?Please come forward and be heard on this matter.

Well, i don't know. In your starting post you mention that the costs are going to be at least $50. Most replies in this thread state that people are interested in the release, but not for $50 (or more). So to me it seems logical that somehow you have to cut some costs.

 

Drop the manual and box art (just put the designs on a webpage somewhere where people can download them and print them themselves. That saves about $5,- according to your specs. Leave out the shipping at first. I know that you have to pay it eventually, but at least the cart would *look* cheaper

Also (but i'm not an expert on this, so i might be totally wrong) $10 for soldering a socket to the board seems a little steep. Maybe if you shop around you can find someone who can do it cheaper. That would give you a price of $22.90 + costs for soldering etc. To me it seems it's not impossible to release this cart for $29.99 (excl. shipping ofcourse).

 

Just to make it clear: I'm not bashing you or anything nor do i claim to know everything about how to release Lynx games but i think that most people are not willing to pay full price for lynx games anymore...

 

*still hoping this gets released*

 

 

 

 

My earlier post was a preliminary to production post.I don't know if i can get a good price on my boards now---the last

quote I had was a "special favor and 'great' price" quote for 100 of the special boards that are needed to make this a reality.That quote and favor has since expired and board prices and labor have since gone up more---I don't think i can get that same $500 dollar offer for those boards again.If i only get a small number of say 25, the price per board is even

higher.Most places have a minimum order of 100 boards though.

Then you have the chips,one quote was for 1-5 chips were $19.90 ea. or you could get 6 or more for $17.90 ea.Add that

up for 100 EPROMs.Are all of them able to be written to?Are there some "duds" in your lot,seeing how volatile EPROMs

can be to have and use.After you write to them/burn them they can possibly suffer from "bit rot" and be useless while in

stock for order or after the consumer has possession.

These are just some of the things we are dealing with before you folks may see this in your lynxes.It is 6 years and counting on this project,it keeps getting shelved because of hassles or supply problems and the like.Sorry,folks.Just the

curse of Atari and the Lynx,I guess.Thanks for looking.--the lynxer

[else]

Why not do a budget release of the game? $50+ is quite steep for most people. Chip + board = $22.90. Add a few bucks for other small supplies and you could sell the game for something like $29.99. I'm sure you are going to get more interest if the price is right...

 

I'll second that. A buget release like this is the way to go. I would be in for something in the $20 to $30 range. $50 is too steep for me. We've been spoiled with the abundance of Lynx games that can be had cheap.....

 

 

 

This is all well and fine for discussion guys and sounds good on the lynx forum and all that,but it does not look good on

paper if you look at the expenses we see before it even goes in the box to be shipped off to someone out there in the

Lynx loving world.I can itemize it all for you here,if you all are interested:

Here goes---(these are the last figures we had on this in March '06)

 

1.) TC574000AD-150 EPROM 17.90

2.) 4 Mb/512K Lynx board 5.00

3.) Solder charge per unit 10.00

4.) Color manual/art 2.00

5.) Clamshell package/box 3.00

6. Shipping/Insurance (which

is usually "free" to folks that

order from Video 61) 6.50

 

Total $44.40

 

 

Now this is all i can think of at the moment for cost,this includes no profit to either of us on this being offered to you lynxers out there.Can someone offer me an idea of how we can offer the lynx masses a "bargain cart" offering to just get this thing just out the door and released to everyone that "might" want to buy a copy?Please come forward and be heard on this matter.How do you make something for $44/45.00 dollars U.S. and offer it for sale for $29.95?Is this sound

business sense?We are not living in 1990/91 anymore with the Lynx being the hot new color handheld unit to have in the

gaming world.This is 2006 and we have the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS as the handhelds of choice now,even the Apple

iPod to boot.The Lynx rather pales compared to these in 2006,i think.I'm still a closet lynxer yet,though. --the lynxer

 

Well, judging by your comments you seem to already have your mind made up. Nonetheless, I'll tell you how I made the JagLink II as cheap as possible....

 

1) I didn't do a box or manual, so that takes $5.00 off.

2) I used PCB Express and laid out the PCB myself. Their software is free and easy to use. They have no minimum order from what I remember. With this method I was able to get boards for about $2.00 each. This takes $3.00 off.

3) I hand-soldered everything. Sure it takes a little longer, but it's not like your going to sell hundreds of these. Solder a couple each night and after a few weeks you're all set (what's a couple of weeks compared to your six years). This takes $10.00 off.

4) Shipping is not $6.50, but is around $4.00. So that takes $2.50 off.

 

By my calculations, if I were doing this I could build it for $23.90. Sell it for $29.95 and you've got a nice profit on each one. I think you're being overly pessimistic -- I really don't see a problem here, but then again I'm pretty frugal and will do anything to save a penny.....

Edited June 17, 2006 by else

[Atari Smeghead]

I've said it earlier in this post and I'll say it again. I'd buy one. $50 isn't that big of a deal to me, to get a new Lynx game and support someone who is trying to keep our community alive.

 

I bought Jag Gorf when it came out, I have bought most of the Songbird releases, I bought Alpine Games, I bought all of the "demo" Lynx carts from B & C ...

 

I do agree that if cost is a factor to some, do what you can to lower it. There have been some great suggestions here. I like the suggestion to not do a box or instructions. Be cheap and Xerox or better yet, email/post the instructions and let the buyer print them up themselves. Do like B & C and have "cart only" for $40. Have a "cheap" and a "regular" version. If offered the choice, I'd buy the full-blown box/instructions version.

 

Shipping can be lowered. Heck, offer a $.39 no insurance, "drop it in an envelope" option, for those who want to take the risk. Just make sure they understand it's at their own risk. But even USPS Priority Mail is what, $4.05 these days? In several hundreds buys/sells on ebay, I've only had one item disappear or arrive damaged. Some would take the chance.

 

So, again, put it out and some of us will buy it no matter what.

 

Smeg

[+davidcalgary29]

Chris, I think that there are different markets for new releases and the group of "heritage" titles which Relief Pitcher represents. I think that most people appreciate the fact that it takes considerable effort to produce a Lynx homebrew, and are willing to reward those efforts with $$. On the other hand, there seems to be less appetite to compensate the efforts of those seeking to publish long-lost games like Relief Pitcher. The answer to this problem, I think, is to turn efforts like RP into "Atari history" titles, and include photocopies/images of original game development docs and promotional materials with each reproduced game. This probably wouldn't be very expensive, and it would help to place each respective game in its context. At the very least, it would open up RP's potential audience to the general classic gaming community as a whole.

[Rugxulo]

I agree that you should drop the box and manual, just put it up for download so people can at least read the instructions. I know some people are obsessive about having it "complete in box", but if they're too cheap, too bad.

 

BTW, I'm no baseball fanatic (though it's sorta interesting), so if it'll put the customer count over the top for the required minimum, I'll buy one at $50, okay? (sounds unlikely though)

 

Good luck!

 

P.S. I do think you need to confirm permission from the copyright holder, though. No sense in risking it.

 

Can someone offer me an idea of how we can offer the lynx masses a "bargain cart" offering to just get this thing just out the door and released to everyone that "might" want to buy a copy?Please come forward and be heard on this matter.

Well, i don't know. In your starting post you mention that the costs are going to be at least $50. Most replies in this thread state that people are interested in the release, but not for $50 (or more). So to me it seems logical that somehow you have to cut some costs.

 

Drop the manual and box art (just put the designs on a webpage somewhere where people can download them and print them themselves. That saves about $5,- according to your specs. Leave out the shipping at first. I know that you have to pay it eventually, but at least the cart would *look* cheaper *still hoping this gets released*

Edited June 20, 2006 by Rugxulo

[EricDeLee]

I changed my stance on certain Lynx games (hey... if you can change your views and focus points in politics, can't I do the same for what I'd spend for certain Lynx games?) LOL

 

I think the $50 price is more than fair. I hope we all get a chance in the future on this one. Chris... do you know if the 512 board for EotB is the same that could be used for Relief Pitcher? I'm not turning this into a 'Let's get a limited run of EotB out there'. .... but then again... maybe it is. lol

[+LS650]

Wow - this thread is a blast from the past!

 

Hey, I have no problem with $50 for a new Lynx game: in the last couple of months I've bought both Championship Rally ($43 + S&H) and Yastuna 2: The Space Incident ($35 + S&H). The problem is that baseball (or for that matter any sports game) just doesn't excite me.

 

If it was a cool new space shooter, a racing game, a tricky puzzle game like Tetris or Chip's Challenge, heck, even an RPG, I'd go for it - but another baseball game?

[im_reg]

I'd be interested but $50 is fairly high imo.

[EricDeLee]

For a sports game, yes... it is a high price. However, I think the cost is very reasonable due to the components of this game (512... the epproms, etc).

I also think, once you get past a certain point in your collection, you start to think about titles like this. It is a niche title. (Is that the right word/spelling?)

 

But on that same aspect: So was Alpine Games. It is an olympic title, which generally doesn't do all that well. (Look at most olympic titles that come out for the newer generation titles). I think a very cool factor of the AG title was the codes that yoiu could send in for your world records. To me, that gave you something to always play the game for. A very cool idea.

 

I'm a baseball fan, and I've been bored with a few baseball games after a few plays. But, I am a Lynx fan. And RP is one of those games that eludes everyone because it is a proto.

 

If given the chance, I would jump at the $50 pricetag. I know there are other collectors here that would do the same, they would buy it just to have it. So... I hope there is a chance. I don't know if $100 copies would be sold, but that sure would be nice.