Do Amibay moderators check for flawed products ?

[Deleted member 14264]

I have spotted easily half a dozen hardware products offered on Amibay that have serious technical flaws which could easily damage the computer they are intended to be used with over the last few years.

As often as I saw relevant, I flagged the advertised products and... nothing happened.

Best examples: Products designed to be inserted in a DIP circuit socket but use thick square pegs as contact legs really designed for floppy/IDE/SCSI female connectors or cards/cartridges which use ordinary HASL material as edge connectors instead of proper gold plating, likely to scrape off when inserted or removed.

Is there anybody among the Amibay staff checking these out to make sure this forum isn't used to swindle people ?

I have a degree in electrical engineering so I can spot them quite easily but I am sure an EE degree isn't required to spot a lot of obvious problems with some products announced.

Commodore intended most of the computers they sold to be completely obsolete after a maximum of 2 years of usage but now, my VIC-20 is 38 years old and my main C64 is 33 years old so I really pay attention to what I do with them. I suspect many people do as well.

The worst is, if you dare say anything about a potential problem with something advertised, you very quickly get massively trolled.

 

[Bryce]

Although pushing header pins into an IC socket is a really bad idea and definitely not best practice, I'm not sure I'd call it a flaw, just a crap design. It's up to the knowledgable members to call people out for questionable design choices when they spot them. You can't expect Moderators to do technical appraisals on every piece of hardware that gets offered here. Not only do they possibly not have the required qualifications, I doubt they have the time either.

I pointed out a design flaw recently that would have electronically damaged the buyers equipment and the designer took it on board and revised the design accordingly. That's how it should be. The buyers now know they are getting a better/safer product than before which is good news for the designer too.

Even if a designer can't take constructive criticism and tells you where to stick it, the potential buyers will be made aware of the risks they are taking and can decide for themselves whether they want to buy the device or not.

Bryce.

 

[RetroPassion]

Its not Amibay's responsibility to vet products, they just provide the forum. How would you manage that process, you would have to have a team where the items that people want to sell and then vet them, you would need very technical people also doing it, so its not practical or possible to police it.

These are hobby products for a VERY small community and just glad people are still happy creating them to be honest I do see your point btw.

 

[davideo]

All the staff work to support the site in what little spare time we have.

We're more concerned with stopping people scalping/robbing our members than whether a product is suitable for use.

As Bryce stated there are more knowledgeable people on here and I include myself in that statement.

Buyer beware and if you're not sure ask the seller

 

[Deleted member 14264]

I pointed out a design flaw recently that would have electronically damaged the buyers equipment and the designer took it on board and revised the design accordingly. That's how it should be. The buyers now know they are getting a better/safer product than before which is good news for the designer too.

Even if a designer can't take constructive criticism and tells you where to stick it, the potential buyers will be made aware of the risks they are taking and can decide for themselves whether they want to buy the device or not.

I'm glad you did what you did. A few months ago, I noted a potential problem to people offering a specific product and I was pelted with insults.

We're more concerned with stopping people scalping/robbing our members than whether a product is suitable for use.

A legitimate and high priority concern indeed.

 

[tbtorro]

Commenting directly on a sales thread might not be a good idea as it could be perceived as price/sales driving or simply trolling (and I stress the term "perceived"). It could also be that the flaw is a simple oversight on the designer's part and can be easily corrected. I think the right course of action would be to PM the seller to point out what you see is a flaw. People who actually design stuff for this hobby are usually more than happy to take improvement advice.

I also often see badly recapped boards, or boards that have serious damage, described as "working perfectly" or "very good condition" on sales threads. I usually really have to fight the urge to point them out for the buyers but I don't, as davideo pointed it out it's "buyer beware", the forum only provides a vehicle to trade things, should not be policing listings unless it's clearly a scam or intentionally listing misleading info about the item.

 

[Sardine]

I was openly critical of the ACA500 and this insulted some members enough for a few to leave.

I said the ACA500 is a great product, it wasn't designed for the community as claimed by jens, it was designed to make money. this is fine as it is a business after all.

but what got me annoyed is that he claimed the reason for 2mb fast ram was a technical issue when in fact it was a financial issue by crippling the ACA500 on purpose to make it almost unusable in the whdload community to promote his ACA12xx range with a convenient edge connector on the ACA500 for this purpose. he also crippled his own apollo 12xx range not to be compatible with the ACA500.

also if you added more fast ram (like a supra 2mb) you do indeed get 4mb fast ram (more was possible with large expansions like kippers 4mb) BUT the ACA500 detected this and dropped its speed to default A500

He has openly said he would purchase all the apollo cards in the world and destroy them, many apollo cards work without issues and when they grow old and break down he refuses to help with mach chip programming or schematics, he will not release the code unless you want to pay £50k or more for it.

Then strangely as I predicted comes the ACA500+ what the ACA500 should have been at the outset. my case proven but because I was critical of the ACA500 my cards where so to speak marked.

do i care... nope.. I still bought an ACA500+ as I think its an excellent product and breathes life into my A500+ I do thank him for that but not for his lies about the ACA500 and 2mb fast ram limit.

 

[davideo]

@All

I've cleaned up the public name calling and bickering from this thread and hopefully not screwed up the context too much.

If you want to talk technicalities of one point or another there are other Sub-Forums on AmiBay to raise them on.

@eslapion and MCes

If you two keep bickering and bitching at each other in public you will be getting a free holiday curtesy of me.