XT IDE Ordering interest? (Was: Xt-ide

[Lord Moz]

Count me in for at least one. What changes are planned from the last model/kit from hargle?

 

[ZOBEX]

Some place I have the schematic, silk screen and bios code from a reverse engineered 8 bit floppy controller for the 360-720-1.2-1.44 card. (( it came from a Chinese company long out of business)) I was going to make up a few but that market died 8 years ago. Now it would be a good match to the IDE HD controller.

OR make up another board and add the two schematics together on the same board. Hmmm.

 

[NobodyIsHere]

Hi! Please post! Mucho interested!

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

 

[digger]

I have a suggestion...

I have a suggestion...

Hi guys,

I only check the forum about every 1.5 to 2 weeks or so, so I'm not sure is someone else already proposed something like this, but:

What if someone (say for instance Yours Truly™) went looking for a fab on this side of the Pond, had that fab produce the boards as well, send them the design, order a batch, and and resell those boards to those of us in Europe?

That would take some of the strain (as well as part of any financial risk) of those of you involved in distributing the kits from the US, and in addition would also make the boards easier to order for those of us in Europe (considering shipping costs), and would also cut back the delivery time for that group.

Right now, I'm very close to moving from a very cramped apartment to a (if all goes well) much more spacious one, but if no one else is already doing or contemplating this after I've moved, I'll be happy to sign up as a volunteer for this. With enough enthusiastic response I'd even be prepared to make an up-front investment in ordering a first batch of boards and parts.

Just let me know if someone already thought of this and you guys are already way ahead of me on this one, or if this offer might be interesting to some of you.

 

[Jorg]

Hi guys,

I only check the forum about every 1.5 to 2 weeks or so, so I'm not sure is someone else already proposed something like this, but:

What if someone (say for instance Yours Truly™) went looking for a fab on this side of the Pond, had that fab produce the boards as well, send them the design, order a batch, and and resell those boards to those of us in Europe?

That would take some of the strain (as well as part of any financial risk) of those of you involved in distributing the kits from the US, and in addition would also make the boards easier to order for those of us in Europe (considering shipping costs), and would also cut back the delivery time for that group.

Right now, I'm very close to moving from a very cramped apartment to a (if all goes well) much more spacious one, but if no one else is already doing or contemplating this after I've moved, I'll be happy to sign up as a volunteer for this. With enough enthusiastic response I'd even be prepared to make an up-front investment in ordering a first batch of boards and parts.

Just let me know if someone already thought of this and you guys are already way ahead of me on this one, or if this offer might be interesting to some of you.

I did give it some thought, about ordering a batch and this way having shipping costs only once for people on this side.
However, I'm not sure at which point it would pass the customs trigger of 'no longer personal items' and import duties go on top of it.
That would be avoided with 'european production' - however then you miss the bulk ordering advantage.
I'd expect at the moment the demand might be not high enough.

 

[Lutiana]

Just let me know if someone already thought of this and you guys are already way ahead of me on this one, or if this offer might be interesting to some of you.

It is an interesting offer. You would need to find not only a PCB fab place, but also a local electronic supply. Think your up for it?

I'll PM you over this coming week and we can see if it is feasible and worth while.

 

[hargle]

since the PCBs are manufactured in china, they are imports for both of us anyway. it may be feasible to get them to ship 1/2 or 1/3 of them to you and the rest to us here. obviously it would be more expensive that way for shipping, but it has to be cheaper than getting a new fab run going. the setup costs alone on any fab run is likely to cost you ~$50 or more.

The other problem I can see is that price breaks for components typically hover at 100 quantities. if you source parts for say 20 or 30 cards on your own, that very well may increase our total costs if we're only buying components for 70.

With the price breaks, it may just make the most sense to get everything kitted up here in the states and then bulk ship 20-30 cards to you at once.

I'll let lutiana juggle all the numbers.

 

[Ruud]

Hallo Jorg,

I did give it some thought, about ordering a batch and this way having shipping costs only once for people on this side.

And I'm one of the people on this side of the big sea, so I'm certainly interested in this idea.

--

Groetjes, Ruud Baltissen

 

[Ruud]

Hallo Hargle,

The *entire* project is open source, from the schematics, layout, utilities and BIOS.

May I ask where I can find all these goodies? I have looked at http://wiki.vintage-computer.com/index.php/XTIDE_project but couldn't find it there.
I'm interested for several reasons. I'm in for two cards anyway for my Commodore PC's that are equiped with an original 8 bit IDE interface. But the drives for these interfaces are rare so I'm looking for a substitute. Another reason: I already have another XT IDE interface but with a brooken ROM Having the sources I could create a new ROM for this one.

Many thanks in advance!

--

Groetjes, Ruud Baltissen

 

[hargle]

Hallo Hargle,


May I ask where I can find all these goodies? I have looked at http://wiki.vintage-computer.com/index.php/XTIDE_project but couldn't find it there.
I'm interested for several reasons. I'm in for two cards anyway for my Commodore PC's that are equiped with an original 8 bit IDE interface. But the drives for these interfaces are rare so I'm looking for a substitute. Another reason: I already have another XT IDE interface but with a brooken ROM Having the sources I could create a new ROM for this one.

Many thanks in advance!

--

Groetjes, Ruud Baltissen

you'll find the schematics and layout items here:
http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=XT-IDE
andrew may or may not have the latest stuff there, but feel free to pester him.

I'll PM you the source for the existing 0.11 bios. I have stopped development on it, as user aitotat has taken over. You will have to PM aitotat to get the XTIDE universal BIOS source.

 

[hargle]

just did a quote from the PCB house, and the quantities break down like this:

25 - $6.30 each
50 - 5.18
80 - 4.97
100 - 4.74

plus a $50 tooling fee. If we don't make any modifications to the existing design, we might be able to skip that fee. I do want to have the holes for the bracket pre-drilled, and the silkscreen moved, so they may very well decide that that's enough re-tooling required to charge us 50 bucks.

Of course these prices are subject to change based on when we order but it does provide a base line for where the bulk quantities kick in.

The price differences on the eeproms are:
1-9 - $3.75 each
10-99 - 3.49
100+ - 3.25

Those are the two big cost items. Obviously the other parts get cheaper in bulk too, but the difference in those two alone, between 50 and 100 is almost 0.50 per card, I'd bet that collectively we will save about $1 per card by doing 100 instead of 50. (that does mean a lot for me, the guy who is bankrolling this whole project!)

I see that we're over 50 cards ordered now, if we can just bridge it up to 100, then everyone wins!

 

[justjunk]

I am in for 2. Preassembled if possible please.

 

[Lutiana]

Ok guys.

Here is the official process, please go here and put in the relevant details in this spreadsheet, if you for some reason don't want to have your email or something there, then just list your forum name.

I will be using this list to work out how many assembled cards we need and how many kits. We intend to order a total of 100 cards so there should be plenty to go around, however the order of priority will be determined by the order of this spreadsheet.

Once we believe the list is near complete I will look at it and work out if we intend to do a bulk mailing or individual mailing to our friend across the pond.

Also, once we have all the parts ordered we will be able to determine the exact price and I will email/PM with instructions on how to get the money to hargle, and how much to send.

Hopefully we can get the kits in the mail by around January 4th, and the cards a bit later.


The spread sheet is here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aq3OABRiL8UCdEt5SUp2V1U3cXFSN1RCYWZPR2NTVFE&hl=en

 

[jackrubin]

XTIDE kit building

XTIDE kit building

I'm happy to help with kit assembly. I hate ordering parts but I sure do like the smell of hot solder and rosin!

Jack

 

[digger]

It is an interesting offer. You would need to find not only a PCB fab place, but also a local electronic supply. Think your up for it?

I'll PM you over this coming week and we can see if it is feasible and worth while.

I'm still interested in helping out, so just let me know. By the way: I've found a new apartment and will be spending at least the next month and a half on moving, so I might not have the time to start on this until about the beginning of February or so.

With the price breaks, it may just make the most sense to get everything kitted up here in the states and then bulk ship 20-30 cards to you at once.

If that turns out to be cheaper, of course. I'm open to that option, as well.

I'll PM you the source for the existing 0.11 bios. I have stopped development on it, as user aitotat has taken over. You will have to PM aitotat to get the XTIDE universal BIOS source.

Wouldn't it be more convenient if the source were checked into an SCM repository somewhere, perhaps on SourceForge or Google Code?

Not only would it make the source easier to acces for all of us, it would also be convenient if more than one developer were to start working on it, not to mention all the other advantages that would come with SCM (safe storage, changelogs, snapshots, experimental branches, release tracking through RSS feeds, etc).

As a matter of fact, we could also use SCM to manage the hardware design schematics as they are refined and improved. Why not?

 

[Lutiana]

I'm still interested in helping out, so just let me know. By the way: I've found a new apartment and will be spending at least the next month and a half on moving, so I might not have the time to start on this until about the beginning of February or so.

I am trying to get a complete list of all the non-usa orders, then once I have an idea then we can make the determination on how we intend to handle them.

February might be a bit late though.

 

[Lutiana]

Ok guys, the poll indicates a total of 63 cards/kits, but the spreadsheet only has a total of 25 on it, remember I am going to use the spreadsheet to work out who get these so please put your details on there as soon as possible.

Hargle and I are honing in on a final price and its looking pretty good, but I will reserve posting an amount until everything is ordered. We are hoping to get it all ordered this week or next and we are looking very good for an early January ship date for kits and mid to late January for the assembled cards.

Here is the spreadsheet link again:

The spread sheet is here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aq3OABRiL8UCdEt5SUp2V1U3cXFSN1RCYWZPR2NTVFE&hl=en

 

[Lutiana]

Here is an Update:

Hargle has the new PCB layout and will hopefully be ordering the PCBs in the next week or so.

I have not called Jameco yet, since I have been slammed at work, but I will do so early next week as we will be pretty slow due to the holiday. We are also considering ordering the Eproms from Mouser since they are specifically the Atmel parts (versus Jameco's generic part), and the pricing seems to be about the same.

If all goes to plan I will be contacting the people on the spreadsheet in early January and hopefully we will be fully stocked with kits and start shipping them by early to mid January, with completed kits going out late January.

Please continue to add your info to the spreadsheet. If you name is not on it you won't get a message from me with payment info.

The spread sheet is here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aq3OABRiL8UCdEt5SUp2V1U3cXFSN1RCYWZPR2NTVFE&hl=en

EDIT: 64 in the poll, but only 38 in the spreadsheet, someones not putting their name down... ;D

 

[barythrin]

It's kinda horrible timing financially for me but I AM really interested in seeing how well they work and if they work well I have quite a few systems (if I can get them running and set up) to test it on and use them on. So I went ahead and signed up for one pre-built and one kit (ideally I'd do kits but I know how lazy I am).

 

[Raven]

I am confused as to the price. It says $40 in the first few posts here but there seems to be a difference now that we're buying them in bulk, etc.

I definitely want one but if they're literally in by xmas I'm not sure I can afford it yet.

*puts name down anyway*

Edit: YAY 386 posts, I am now a 32-bit poster.