exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

With the TF536 I tried to expand beyond the usual builder crowd. There had been protests and requests to let people who'd not built previous boards get their hands dirty with this new board. In short i'm not doing this again. Its going back to the "usual crowd" plus or minus a few new ones.

In particular there is a country east of Scotland that i've no interest in ever doing any business with again. There seems to be an expectation that i've released a product. I've done no such thing. For the cost of materials i've allowed you to share my hobby. If you dont like it throw it in the bin.

So basically i'm going to the Ferrari model. I will decide who i want to share my hobby with from now on. You can buy from them if they allow it or you can wait the 12-18months for things to be open sourced. If no one wants them its actually even better since i can just have fun doing more new projects for myself and reducing the distraction of support to zero.

terriblefire wrote: 17 Jul 2020 13:07 I can just have fun doing more new projects for myself and reducing the distraction of support to zero.

That's the key thing.
Support is a drain, especially when it's repeated over and over. Your time is much better utilised elsewhere for sure.
It's a shame for the ones that never cause an issue losing out, maybe keeping the supply chain open through exxos store can help them?

As a mere observer, I did watch the "expression of interest" threads and thought it was getting unmanageable. I say this with intent of showing support for the idea of only having "the usual" selling the boards. From my personal experience, "the usual" offer very, very good support and look their customers very, very well.

PaulJ said it right, selling to many people will drain you of time, resources, energy and probably enthusiasm.

This is a good decision!

The Exxos webshop is IMHO a perfect solution for people who want to build their own boards, the people who i referred seemed really happy about the service.
(maybe a disclaimer could be added).

When the boards are more mainstream the support will probably be carried by more people.
Maybe we could make a few stickies with common errors and solutions, and things like that they should always take a few high res pictures of the board when posting build issue's etc.

Love these TF boards!

I have to admit, people should not just rush build anything and start sending them out! Wait for them to mature before you start trying to make a few quid! It just results in unwanted stress all around.

GadgetUK164 wrote: 17 Jul 2020 19:47 I have to admit, people should not just rush build anything and start sending them out! Wait for them to mature before you start trying to make a few quid! It just results in unwanted stress all around.

Exactly. They dont read the history and the caution behind this card. Its really still in the expanded beta phase.

Maximilian wrote: 17 Jul 2020 18:34 The Exxos webshop is IMHO a perfect solution for people who want to build their own boards,

This ^^^^

Making the boards available directly or via Exxos' shop has my vote.

I'm a tinkerer. I like building things for not only the having of the thing, but also the enjoyment of putting the thing together. I understand your reluctance to deal with support :(

If I build a kit my expectation is that it might not work.
If I buy a built item my expectation is that it will work perfectly when I plug it in.

I've put together one of my TF536 pcbs. Construction is mostly a breeze.
Part spacing is really good. Easy to drag solder the SMD ICs. < 10 minutes to have all of those in place.
Soldering the PGA and DIL sockets took an age. Hence the mostly :)

Programmed up with the latest github .jed file without a hiccup.

I've yet to sort out and soak test an ST to place the tf536 in :roll:

Mr terriblefire, a big thank you from me for your PCBs.

terriblefire wrote: 17 Jul 2020 19:52

GadgetUK164 wrote: 17 Jul 2020 19:47 I have to admit, people should not just rush build anything and start sending them out! Wait for them to mature before you start trying to make a few quid! It just results in unwanted stress all around.

Exactly. They dont read the history and the caution behind this card. Its really still in the expanded beta phase.

I would hope that by now, the early adopters would be used to expecting a bug here and there. It is part of the normal development phase.

We had this with literally every board. The 328 had the RAM issue that was later fixed, the 330 wouldn't boot on Akiko rev 0, etc.

Heck, in the '90s when I first got my BlizzardPPC it was totally unusable until I got the firmware update. It's not a new thing...

I remind prospective purchasers that the card may not work in their computer or that they will need to modify it to get the TF536 to work.

Of course I'm happy to help them get it working if I know how, etc.

PhilC wrote: 17 Jul 2020 20:38 I remind prospective purchasers that the card may not work in their computer or that they will need to modify it to get the TF536 to work.

Of course I'm happy to help them get it working if I know how, etc.

Yeah, I and I think that's the key - getting key distributers to buffer issues.