[Arm-netbook] EOMA-68 development cycle

[luke.leighton]

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 1:09 AM, Craig Ballew
<arm-netbook2013 at mymemopad.com> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: arm-netbook [mailto:arm-netbook-bounces at lists.phcomp.co.uk] On Behalf Of luke.leighton
> Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2013 7:12 PM
>>
>>  anyway.  this is probably more than you were expecting but gives you a quick round-up (yes, really: quick!) of what's > going on and where we're going.
>>
>> l.
>
> It was exactly what I needed to know, thank you for taking the time for the long explanation. I was wondering if this was an investment opportunity

 well it would be _nice_ to have that investment!  it'd certainly make
life easier

> but I see you are structuring the projects to insure that all profits are returned to fund the project instead of having to payback investors with an acceptable rate of return on the original investment.

 perhaps i should have been clearer: we *are* seeking investment (in
QiMod Ltd), however we have a bootstrap plan which is a bit slower and
will get there in the end if investment's not received.

> Did you ever consider using Kickstarter which would reward payback with finished hardware instead of profits?

 yes... i do want to have a stable tested product before doing that.
from what i understand of kickstarter's new rules, you *have* to have
a working prototype before being able to apply for technology-based
projects now.

plus, there are a couple of other routes such as chris who is
preparing a campaign for a thin client product (we don't know how
large that'll be but it'll be north of 1k units), another person who
is doing a hand-held games console (that'll be 4k+ units) and i'm
doing the flying squirrel (kde vivaldi tablet, 10k+ units) and we
still have 900 preorders to go through.

if these people are all pre-paid projects then we're off.

>
> I assume that normally a company developing these products would a required an investment well north of $1M

 ... and employees who need paying, and directors who want fast cars
and toys to play with and so on... :)  whereas myself and one of my
associates have other full-time jobs which have been helping keep
things going for over 4 years, another is now semi-retired and
self-sufficient: that and leveraging the free software community has
meant we have zero employees, zero debt, and zero interest to pay
back.

 kinda odd, really :)


> and released a proprietary product probably priced out of the range of most hobbyists.

 ... well... you say that buuut there are examples now which show
that's not true.  neal's pengpod, tom's cubieboard, the hackberry, the
marsboard (although this one we really don't know who's behind it),
and many more.


> As somebody who expects to reap the fruit of your team's labor, thanks to everybody and I'm anxiously awaiting my share of the pre-orders.

 awesome! :)


> Are you anticipating that the proposed EOMA-68 Carrier Boards or equivalent will be manufactured simultaneously so that everybody will be able use their EOMA-68 cards or are you assuming most will have build their own version of the EOMA-68 Carrier Boards?

 like many A10/A20 PCBs we're fully expecting EOMA-68 CPU Cards (and a
basic MEB, and a more comprehensive MEB) to be available for sale on
digikey, mouser, farnell / cpc, rsonline, avnet etc. etc.

 so as an investment opportunity once we've got sata, ethernet and
rgb/ttl confirmed working i'd say it was a no-brainer, as the cash
would help us to be able to buy stock immediately, over-order etc.
etc. etc. rather than needing to coordinate and consolidate
simultaneous cash-up-front projects - we can _do_ that, it's just a
little slower that's all.

 but, yes they're independent. btw the vision is that you'll literally
be able to walk into say argos and pick up a tablet or a laptop or an
EOMA68-compliant LCD monitor, and choose from a range of CPU Cards.
or go into maplin's and get a MEB and a CPU Card.  or walk into a
hypermarket and on the shelf there's a range of appliances on one rack
and a range of CPU Cards on another.

that's going to need a bit of user-education and shopkeeper education,
and very very clear labelling as i fully expect there will be people
who buy e.g. *just* a tablet chassis (because it's cheap, because it
has no processor), take it home and wonder why it doesn't work... :)

l.