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Hi Ian! Thanks! I really like
the $20 per board too since that basically covers expenses with a small risk
margin. My goal here is just cover expenses and get as many boards to
builders as possible. I also seek feedback from you and others on various
cost vs. speed trade-off curve to see where everyone is on the issue. We
could go faster with greater cost but couldn’t get much less expensive
without dramatic changes. I am inclined to leave it alone unless
there is a broad sentiment to change it – which there doesn’t seem
to be at the moment. That may change with time though as the initial
surge of boards settles down so I’ll keep asking from time to time.
In any event, I am open to discussions so please post your thoughts! There are just so many things I’d like
to do and there just isn’t enough time! Thanks and have a
nice day! Andrew Lynch From:
n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ian Douglas Hi Andrew, and all, Just my 2c, whatever
the costs are, so be it, but for me personally I really, really like the $20
per board, even if it means a little delay it means I can get multiples of the
same boards in case of problems as I perceive this as a long haul effort.
I’d also kind of suspect the cheaper price also opens it up for those who
are curious about vintage computing, but may perhaps otherwise be discouraged
by a higher price. The price vs effort vs perceived reward? Cheers, Ian From: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Andrew Lynch Hi! I placed a PCB manufacturing order for the S-100
4MB SRAM boards! They should be here in mid-February or so. Now that the S-100 4MB SRAM boards are ordered, we should
discuss and consider the next round of PCB reorders. The next board with the highest number of builders on the
waiting list is the S-100 buffered prototyping board. That could be next
assuming we get enough builders in the queue to go forward. Currently
there are 13 builders for it in the queue. However, personally I would like to see the S-100 EPROM (11
builders) and S-100 IO (7 builders) boards get ordered sooner because both of
those have minor issues we could clean up in a PCB respin. I do not think
the S-100 buffered prototyping board needs any changes so it would be a
straight reorder of boards like the S-100 4MB SRAM board. Also the S-100
EPROM and S-100 IO are really important boards for builders making their own
homebrew systems from scratch. I have some questions for our S-100 hobbyist community: What boards would you like to see next in terms of reorders
and/or PCB respins? I normally gauge this by the number of builders in
the waiting list and a bit of subjective preference. The reorder and PCB respin process is tied to the number of
builders in the waiting list. It normally takes about $500 to do a PCB
respin and about $450 for a PCB reorder. That’s why I need the
20-25 builders in the queue for a reorder or PCB respin. However we could
change this calculation by increasing unit price. Frankly, I would prefer
to keep the unit price as low as possible and $20 seems to be the
“acceptable pain” threshold however the waits between PCB orders
can become excessive. If we bump up the unit price we can order boards with a
lower quantity of PCBs. Would the builders be open higher prices and
smaller quantities of boards? This would allow more frequent respins and
PCB reorders but at greater cost. The default path is we just wait until
the queue grows long enough to warrant new orders at the current unit
price. I believe it will happen eventually but it may take a few
months. This could vary over time and/or by board depending on builder
preferences. I appreciate very much the tremendous support received from
the S-100 hobbyists and seek more improvements in developing and supplying
S-100 boards for our community! Thanks and have a nice day! |