Future ROM price increase

[exxos]

I was looking for current pricing for the DUALTOS ROMs and they seem to have almost doubled in price since last time I purchased them As such future ROM's will have to have a price increase because of this.

I guess in a way its good I decided to reduce the number of ROM combinations I was selling in my store as they doubling in price would mean I would have to reduce my stock anyway.

FlashyClock is really the future aim anyway for ROM's.

[stephen_usher]

The alternative would be to have a ROM repository and sell a PCB which acts as an adapter for readily available DIP EEPROM writers, such as the TL866II Plus, plus a stock of blank PROMs. Effectively a DIY kit.

I designed an adapter board and I can give you the full KiCAD and Gerber files for it if you like.

[DominoTree]

The alternative would be to have a ROM repository and sell a PCB which acts as an adapter for readily available DIP EEPROM writers, such as the TL866II Plus, plus a stock of blank PROMs. Effectively a DIY kit.

I designed an adapter board and I can give you the full KiCAD and Gerber files for it if you like.

The PROMs themselves are getting expensive, and don't even *think* about looking at what EEPROM equivalents cost these days

[olivier.jan]

FlashyClock is clearly a very neat solution and will most likely be the best solution for STF.
STEs on the other hand might be a problem with their PLCC CPUs.
I was wondering if a solution based on SST39SF020 or even 040 couldn’t be cheaper. Even with two 8 bits chips at 1€ each, it’s so much cheaper and as it’s flash, you can always reflash it if something goes wrong.

[exxos]

FlashyClock is clearly a very neat solution and will most likely be the best solution for STF.STEs on the other hand might be a problem with their PLCC CPUs.

Problem there is, if I were to develop such a alternative solution, I might as well just spend the time to port flashy clock over to the STE instead.. It all comes down to lack of time for multiple projects which is why I basically dropped any new STE / Falcon stuff.. Its not just getting stuff to work, its getting it to work with random variables across multiple motherboard revisions and tolerances etc. Plus every time I pickup a original board off my shelf, I have to spend 1-2 hours trying to get the thing working again before I can actually do the addons, over the years its just drove me nuts.

So I am not saying stuff will never be ported to the STE etc, but i'd rather spend time on upgrading the remake boards.. things like flashy etc can work on original machines , as the remake is essentially a "Fixed STF" , but debugging original machines with multiple problems on multiple boards, its why I say I am not officially supporting original machines anymore. If people want to gamble on upgrading 30+ year old boards, its their choice, just don't expect me to debug it all, as I am done doing all that now.

Overall, As I said in another thread, I am not doing 104 / 102 ROMs anymore, and a lot of DIP ROMs in fact. I will keep on stocking STE ROMs etc if they keep selling, but if the price increases mean nobody buys them, then I just wont sell them anymore.

[exxos]

It seems ROM prices jumped up a lot. I went for cheapest "mainstream" supplier prices I could find to base prices on. Though its tough as I am having to slowly increase my store prices to actually generate more capital as with so many projects in motion, costs are really starting to ramp up again Mixed in with ROM prices basically doubling lately as well..

So far the Falcon ROM has gone from £10 to £16.60. I suspect all other DUALTOS ROMs will also go up in price when stocks are depleted. As mentioned before, I'm starting to discontinue a lot of ROM combinations as they are just becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to obtain. As I bulk buy things, if I paid £500 for ROM's, it would now be £1,000.. Obviously I do not have a extra £500 lay around to buy them. So the only overall compromise is to slowly increase prices and reduce the amount of stock I have to buy...

I know people have suggested on and off the forum of alternatives etc.. I appreciate the thoughts.. Though it is never simple as for example I need 55ns ROMs for the boosters.. If people dont want DUALTOS I sell single EPROMs for STE etc. Any other solution would require buying more stock, working on other alternative boards, it is just work and more stock I do not really wish to buy..

I know some people are unhappy about the 16-bit ROMs I use for everything.. But this allows me to buy that one item in bulk and helps keep prices down along with the amount of different items I have to stock as well. It is one reason I discontinued the 6 CHIP TOS versions.. I mean 6 chips per TOS, 10 sets, 60 ROMs, multiplied by several different languages.. Takes up a lot of storage space which I do not have... Plus with these chips being heavy and with increased postal costs.. Cost of buying them ramp up very quickly...

For me personally, it is easier just to deal with one single ROM chip (16bit) which works for several different projects.. I think people don't realise that while buying a couple of chips in China can be very cheap, as soon as you start buying hundreds of them, the costs really start to escalate very quickly... Not only with postage, but import taxes which generally people don't have to pay on low value items...Again, it is more items I have to keep on top of in terms of stock.. I will try and keep items all in stock as long as possible of course, but at some point people will just stop buying them to the point where it is just no longer feasible to produce that item any more.

Overall I'm trying to find the best compromise for everything but it is certainly not easy. 5volt items are just inherently going to get more expensive, it is why I would just rather spend the time developing on the H5 platform, as I can now use 3.3V (or lower ) parts which are lower cost and more plentiful.

EDIT:

It will also affect things like diagnostic cartridges which also use the same ROM IC..

[sporniket]

5volt items are just inherently going to get more expensive, it is why I would just rather spend the time developing on the H5 platform, as I can now use 3.3V (or lower ) parts which are lower cost and more plentiful.

Yes, the 3.3v extension of the H5 is a blessing.

[exxos]

I've equalised the ROM prices in my store now. People have had ample time to take advantage of "yesterday's" prices.

Unfortunately prices may be going up again soon as parts shortages are becoming a huge problem lately. I need 100s of the things just for the current batch of diagnostic carts. I will look around for the best deals but likely the diagnostic cart's price will jump up a lot, not because exxos is being greedy, but the ROM prices are skyrocketing. So prices of items in my store have to go up else I'd be selling at a loss.

Edit:
I will buy up what I can find, but looks like they going to be out of stock for a year