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letzter Beitrag von Snoopy am
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The official MEGA65 DevKit preorder sale starts: 18th of June 2020
Many of you have been waiting, together with us, for quite some years for that day.
Today we can officially announce that the pre-order for the MEGA65 DevKit finally starts.
The MEGA65 Development Kit will be ready for pre-order tomorrow (18th of June 11AM CEST (GMT+2)) at Trenz-Electronic, our valued partner. This is a limited run of 100 pieces aimed at developers who want to participate shaping the final machines, which are expected to be released in 2021, or want to start producing software for the MEGA65. The DevKit comes with special developer support.
We have already announced that the price of the DevKit will be higher than the final MEGA65.
This is based on the following facts:
- The DevKit is ultra rare, only a limited number of machines will be sold.
- The DevKit comes with programming hardware
- The DevKit owners will receive extra support from the MEGA65 team at Forum64 and Discord.
- We need to cover the costs for the upcoming release of the final MEGA65s manual and packaging.
We, the MEGA65 team are not making any profit on this sale, like we said, we need to ensure that all costs are covered and we have enough financial buffer to be able to launch the final MEGA65 sale, once the DevKits are gone and development of and cases for the final machine are finished..
So get the most powerful retro home computer for only 999€
And this is what you’ll get:
General
Hardware
Software
What’s in the box
This DevKit, hence the name, is a kit. You need to assemble it yourself (or find someone to do it, which is easy if you use the forum and channels we give you access to). We are providing an assembly video to help you do this. Assembly usually takes 15 to 60 minutes, depending on your skills.
???? What do you think about price ????
1000 EUR - do you think that it will have success?
I was interest in, but now I am not,.
Miro
???? What do you think about price ????
1000 EUR - do you think that it will have success?
I was interest in, but now I am not,.
Miro
Well, I think for the limited edition devkit this is a good price. The regular MEGA65 will be considerably cheaper... at least that seems to be the plan.
???? What do you think about price ????
I really like the Mega65 and love the design of the actual devkit, but we are talking here about 999 EUR!
No developer really needs a case or a floppy disc or a special keyboard, even if it's so high quality as the Mega65 one, for developing.
I would prefer as an (additional) devkit the MEGA65 r3 mainboard and a possibility to connect a standard USB keyboard to it. Nothing more.
Sell such a kit for about 300-400 EUR and a lot more interested developers can "afford" it to buy the devkit.
I think the 100 pieces will be sold out shortly, so the problem is not only the price. The DevKit is not for the masses. The price is ok. If somebody cannot afford it, don't buy. The final system will be offered next year. I expect a lower price, because a higher quantum will be offered.
I hope the owner of the DevKits will develop good soft- and hardware for the machine.
If somebody cannot afford it, don't buy.
If someone want to develop for the Mega65 and even have the knowledge for it, but don't have enough "free" money (e.g. most of the students) for such a high price devkit?
Why not selling an additional devkit (no case, no floppy disc, no Mega65 keyboard) for a lower price to get more developers?
No one get hurt and more developers can write software for the Mega65. So at the end the whole Mega65 community would benefit from it.
The DevKit is also meant to further finance the development of the MEGA65, so the price is probably not just for the components and the case, but also to support the MEGA65 project.
Just a remark: so the one group that will in the end be fundamental to render the MEGA65 a failure or success is the one supposed to finance it as well?
So, there a bunch of things going on here.
First, there are certain costs that we need to cover to get the production machines out the door. If someone has a suggestion of where we can find another cookie jar to raid to cover this. Instead, we are doing it from the one opportunity we have to generate some revenue.
Second, only time will tell if there are 100 people who want to buy one at this price. No one is oblligated to do so.
Third, we are progressing on the emulator and other low-cost ways for people to develop for the MEGA65. There is also the existing low-cost options of the Nexys4DDR FPGA board etc. So we aren't really so hamstrung on this as it might first seem.
Fourth, for this first batch all the costs are higher, so it just naturally ends up being quite expensive. This experience now helps us to minimise the price for the production units. But we also have to remember that a full mechanical keyboard, an injection moulded case and a high-performance fully-custom FPGA board are not cheap components. Thus there is a cetain cost-basis that we have to work with at this stage.
In short, if anyone can propose a cheaper way to achieve this, we'd love to hear about it, but after a lot of thinking about it, we haven't yet found a better way.
LG
Paul
Just to show, this was the devkit option for the Spectrum Next:
ZX Spectrum Next board (devkit)
ZitatFor the hardware hacker in you, just the ZX Spectrum Next mainboard: all the features of the Spectrum Next, minus the case and accessories.
Sold for about 143 GPB compared to the final complete Spectrum Next for about 300-330 GBP.
Talking ´bout a shot in the foot. I assume a PS5 Devkit is as cheap..?
In short, if anyone can propose a cheaper way to achieve this, we'd love to hear about it, but after a lot of thinking about it, we haven't yet found a better way.
Why not let to buyer of the "normal" Mega65 pay the price for the final product?
A devkit for a much higher price as the final product means, that the developer who "should" produce some software for the Mega65 also "have" to pay the costs, that the final product could be sold cheaper.
I think, that a devkit should be cheaper as the final product, so there is an incentive to buy one for developing. Just leave away the very nice case, the high quality keyboard and the disc drive and you can sell a devkit at a lower price without any loss of income.
The buyer of the "normal" MEGA65 will pay the price for the FINAL product. Because he will buy the FINAL machine and pay the FINAL price.
At the moment they still have DEVELOPMENT costs to cover, in order to even GET to the final product.
Ausverkauft!
Are we in a Basar, or do we have a Free Marketplace?
If the MEGA-Team can sell all 100 items for 999,-€, then they are worth it (@ least for those wo buyed it).
If there's no demand for that price, then i supose the TEAM will reduce the price to the production costs.
If there's still no demands, the price will drop under the production costs. This usualy happens when a producer wants to reduce the overall lost. By selling under production costs he reduce his loss.
This we call 'Free market'.
Capitalism, isn't it?
@ MEGA-Team: Herzlichen Glückwunsch!
It's still available for pre-order (11:23):