|
Hi! Thanks! I believe if the
community is to thrive then many hands need the skills to make it happen.
The community project is a great forum for builders to learn through new
experiences. Builders can get involved and learn to make things outside
of their previous experience which benefits everyone. “Software people”
can make hardware and vice-versa. Learn by doing. Time and money will limit most everyone’s
participation to some degree. Personally there are some projects which
interest me more than others and those tend to get my focus even if they are
not popular. However if you remember the early home brew computer clubs
there was a lot of sharing knowledge and skills quite freely. I can pay for some prototyping but not too
much so I have to be selective like anyone else. It is only a hobby so I
cannot let the costs become a problem at home. Community projects can let the collection
expand to include boards which others find important. For example, Nik
really wanted an ECB cassette interface. He basically did all the work
with a little occasional help from me and his board works great. It
supports KCS just like he intended and is a neat board. There have been several builders who’ve
made boards other than me which I think is really great. It is a fun
hobby but it takes lower priority than family, work, etc. I think the
S-100 SPI board would be a neat community project since it is not a board I
would be personally interested in but has tremendous potential for bringing the
powerful SPI mini board concept to vintage computers. I am glad to help as much as I can but the
community is much stronger with multiple able builders going in their own
directions. The last thing we want is to set up a process that is
dependent on any given personality since it will collapse if anything happens
to them. Thanks and have a nice day! From:
n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Douglas Goodall I think these "Community Projects" will come in different
forms. Mike is an example of someone that can provide files necessary for board production, and some
newbies like myself are quite a ways from that point today. I think it might be good for Andrew to keep a hand on the process, and
help out where needed, when he has time... He can let us know what he needs to make
things work more smoothly. Some boards he probably feels strongly enough about
adding to the N8VEM collection, and he has been willing to finance the initial
phases. He gets back some of his initial costs over time when he sells the
boards. If we expect him to pay the upfront costs, it is only reasonable he gets to sell the
boards. If he is not going to manufacture and sell the boards, it is folly to
expect him to finance the initial development. I think that needs to be clear when we are
talking about a new project, whether we expect Andrew to order and stock the boards. If one of us wants to do a similar thing like Andrew, sponsoring the
development of a board, and doing what it takes to make boards available to the
community, that would be nice, and would expand the scope of what we can do. Andrew can mentor
us in how this is done. Someday, I would like to do that, but I have a lot to learn to get
there. Andrew and John have limits to how much they can do and still have
lives, When the time and costs of this activity start to threaten their schedules and
budgets, it would be reasonable that they could ask for help from us, whether it is
financial, or to get more people to roll up their sleeves and help with build and test. I very much want to learn about digital design and test, and it
is worth money to me to see this activity continue. Building and debugging these boards is
providing a wonderful framework for my education, and I am having a ball. We all have different skills and talents (and resources), and if we
work together to support this process, we can continue to benefit as we have been doing. What do you think Andrew? On Jun 19, 2011, at 1:12 PM, Brian Marstella wrote:
I agree about the
logistical issues. I'd much rather see Andrew, John, and others who have the
technical skills and the required hardware be able to concentrate on the
on-going projects and the technical end. Due to financial constraints, a lack
of an S-100 machine, and space issues, I can't be much help on the technical
and prototyping end. However, I'd be willing to help with logistics issues,
maybe compiling a list of interested persons, etc., if that would help keep
Andrew and others from being overwhelmed. On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 4:16 PM, mike <mi...@pikeaero.com> wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- |