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From: doctorj@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Jeffrey W Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: The Amazing Computing PD I/O Board
Message-ID: <1991Feb7.000528.10464@en.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 7 Feb 91 00:05:28 GMT
References: <20945@know.pws.bull.com>
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 47

In article <20945@know.pws.bull.com> ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) writes:
>
>   I'm surprised that nobody has talked about that new hardware hack in
>the lastest Amazing Computing. For roughly $70 in parts you get two serial
>ports and two parallel ports, and it can be used with all Amigas. It takes
>advantage of some of the I/O hardware already in the Amiga, and thus is
>pretty cheap and simple to build. You have to pop out a few chips and such
>to install it, but it will fit inside your 500/1000! I was wondering if any
>hardware hacks out there will offer to build this thing for you, for say
>$100+ to cover the labor involved. I'm handy with a soldering iron, but I
>don't think I'd care to solder this one together. Seems like a good idea for
>hardware hacks to offer producing PD boards (digitizers, I/O ports, LUCAS)
>pre-built for a slightly higher fee. Makes you a little money and makes a
>lot of Amiga owners happy.
Well, not meaning to sound rude, a complete summary of the I/O board was
posted to the net a while ago by the designer himself (I believe).  I also
mentioned this hack in my post about the Lucas/Frances and Amazing 512K
hacks.

The purpose of the PD hardware is to provide the public with the hardware
at as low of a cost as possible.  This usually means just a bare board
with documentation.  It is usually done by an individual, or small group.

Building these boards up would be a great undertaking.  You could make
a full time job out of building these things, and would probably HAVE
TO to make any money.  I used to build printer interfaces and sell them
commercially.  They were a lot simpler than any of these PD hacks, but
took a long time to build between just two of us.  This too started as
a PD hack, later we built them for sale.  Then someone else came out with
a production model of similar function and we just couldn't compete.  Our
hardware was better by far, but cost more to make.  So met the demise
of our interface.  It is pretty difficult to compete with the commercial
hardware when you add the labor charges into the PD hacks.  Labor is
expensive, hence the purpose of PD... without the labor and extra charge
to keep the company going... hardware is fairly cheap!

On the other hand, hiring someone to build it for you on an individual
basis is another story....

These are just my opinions and experiences.  No flames!
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* Jeff Davis                * Relax! And get into    ///  *
* doctorj@en.ecn.purdue.edu * the STRESS!!!         ///   *
*                           *                   \\\///030 *
*                           * -Gigahertz!-  Amiga\XX/ 882 *
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