Vampire 600 V2 - Amiga 600 FPGA accelerator Pre-order

[Ernoman]

This is actually good news. So long I don't tell my wife, the price of the 250 euro's is very much acceptable. I am on the waiting list and will still take a board despite the price bump. I think outsourcing the production is good for the health of both Majsta and Kipper2k. These volumes should not be done at home imho. Now they can concentrate on innovation and prototyping....the fun stuff.

A big thumbs up to you guys for doing such great work and make people happy in the process.

Keep it up!

 

[mario64]

Outstanding news!!!

 

[Pgovotsos]

Does this mean that people who have sent order emails to kipper2k and waited many months are now going to be kicked out of the queue? Will we have to sign up at the order page at the Apollo site and go back to the end of line?

If this is the case, that would be a very bad choice! I followed directions and sent an email to kipper2k 9 months ago with no reply from him to the original or followup messages. If he is going to throw that waiting list away and so penalize the people patiently waiting for their boards, I personally will take it as a big middle finger (V sign to you Brits) to his customers.

I went to the express interest page at the Apollo site and there's already 750 people in line. If those people get boards before those of us who have waited nearly a year, the Apollo team is clearly showing that they don't care about the many people who have followed the instructions given prior to this latest update.

I'm sorry, but if that's what he's going to do (of course we have no idea since he won't communicate), he's made a bad decision.

I'm HOPING that kipper2k will do the right thing and honor the existing orders first. Yes at the new price but they should certainly be served before ANYone else.

 

[suave]

doubling the price is not "Outstanding news" in my opinion. If there are 700 orders and production time is 4 weeks for 100 pcs you can calculate quickly that it will be summer 2017 before all preorders are fulfilled.

Also I agree with Pgovotsos that it completely unclear at which position you are now.

But since its a community project and nobody makes money off of it we still have to be patient. Fingers crossed I get mine before 2017 starts...

 

[mario64]

Summer 2017 is WAY better than what it would have been if majsta was doing them by hand.

 

[Pgovotsos]

Just to be clear, I don't have a problem with the new price. As I said the other day, the previous price was ridiculously low and unsustainable. Honestly, I think the new price is still too low.

 

[wmsteele]

When adding my email I was told that I was already on the waiting list, so assume Kipper had added this. Like many others I have been patiently waiting for 9 plus months. The price hike is fairly large but at least will result in cards making it into our hands quicker, I hope, no doubt it will also result in few drop outs.

 

[blipsqueak]

Yeah, he seems to have kept the old list. Awesome news either way! I agree, the price was WAY too low to keep this going.

 

[Khebonger]

i'm also assuming, or rather hoping, this will speed up availability of the Vampire 1200
i'm ok with the price as well

 

[eStorm]

Basically 250€ are OK,

but it's not OK, that some people (successful) jumped the queue (e.g. by begging/whining in IRC) - they got the V600II at the "old" price and people who waited patiently are now "punished" by the higher price.

 

[eXeler0]

This Project is unprecedented in Amigaland.
Majsta was the primary reason for the very low price of the V600 mk2. He wants to make hardware available at an affordable price, but I doubt anyone could have foreseen the impact it has had on the entire Amiga community.

So when your hobby project goes from ~ 100 orders to ~1000 something needs to change.

And that change simply needs to start at some point. So who gets what at what price will not be perfectly fair for everyone, but we have to move forward at some point.

In fairness, everyone had the chance to be an early adopter and even get the card for the crazy low price of €90.

(If you were one of those who bought Google stock in 1999 btw, well then congrats to you. ;-)

If this whole move means we can have V500 and V1200 versions available soon and Majsta and Kipper kan go back to having normal lives, well then that's a win-win. The extra cash.. oh well.. it's not like you can go and buy anything even close in performance for less or equal amount of money anyway..



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[1NOM155]

Messaged to Kipper,

Thank you so much for your and others involved of course, doing a bad decision by increasing the price, compare to what you said last year (150€). When me and a lot of other people interested had email you (Kipper) and didn't received any answer. Or in my case after I ask you about the total cost of Vampire 2 plus chip ram, ide2cf and joystick adaptor.

Like others already said here, pushing people to the end of the queue, and now sending them to Apollo website to ask the card and not honour your word about low price / affordable a high performance accelerator for A600, aka Vampire 2 at 150€?
Now you and the rest ask 250€ for a regular version or 289€ for the "black edition"? What is this? is the new Individual 1221 accelerator (buy features later to increase you income)?
Also my email was forget? Will I pay 250€ or 289€ or the 150€ as we agree when I send the email on Fri 18-12-2015, 20:11????

Basically I feel betrayed and have the sensation you are just another liar, who start a good project together with Majsta and end we get this kind of crap of situation (chancing the big money).
Also saying is too expensive to send the card to a fabricate faster and cheaper is impossible? since the fabric will ask higher cost?
You certainly don't have any experience about PCB fabrication in Europe... (I'm not saying about playing in Eagle or KiKad EDA, but about cost's of PCB manufacturing).

Oh and almost forget to say, keep in mind, us Europeans, may have to pay to the customs house fee's by buying stuff from outside of Europe, and that will increase the final cost to us...

I just want to know if you guys will keep your word, by selling the original price and keep the order / queue?

 

[AMike]

You can cancel your preorder anytime.

sent from mobile device

 

[Marmes]

Vampire boards are being handled in a childish way. We have extremely intelligent people with no eye for business. Kipper2k said this:
"Boards are partially preassembled in Asia. you cannot beat this price, we decided on a low price, it CANNOT! be produced for this price anywhere commercially, We will not increase price to accommodate the unexpected rush that has happened, if this is too much of a wait for people then it has to be. fpga is put on the board by me in a proper reflow oven using correct reflow techniques. I sense you are very unhappy with this process, other retro products can have a waiting process also."
You can confirm this http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=6&note=1955&order=&x=1
After I ask him why they didn't do it on an assembly line.
Of course I'm unhappy with the process, but it's not just me, I think most of the people who are waiting are unhappy with the process.
Now prices got higher, wich i understand, since intel bought altera, they pushed the prices of fpgas up.

I made small quantities of pcbs in the past , with much more complexity than the vampire, and the assembly price would not push the price so much. If they managed to listen or read what people said, we wouldn't be in this situation, there wouldn't be a waiting list for 750 people, because 1000 boards would be assembled in less than 1 week. The price would rise something like 10 euros per board. Now , prices are almost doubled. And all this because of bad decisions. Majsta also is making a desperate atempt to make boards with a home made pnp, and a toasts oven, that won't simply do the job.
Also those people that are in line just to buy the vampire so they can go to evilbay and sell them for 800 euros, should be ashamed, you don't deserve the effort people are putting on this.
Now he's totally making the oposite of what he promised.
I just don't even care i wich postion I'm in. I know it's in a screwd up position. I will just give up on this. In the end Jens in all his arrongant way, has some right points on what he says.

 

[Harkonnen75]

I personally wish the best for this project.
I sincerely believe that is a great project for the Amiga world.


My case is similar to @ 1NOM155.
3 months ago I sent an email and no response. That I did not like.
And now I see that in the last year, the price goes up 2 or 3 times.


Personally, I canceled my order.

 

[CrazyBob]

We need to leave the negativity out.

The Vampire project started out to prove FPGA's can be used to enhance old Amiga's, and can be used in ways we have not seen before.

The project is maturing and everbody wants to be on the Vampire train asking for more functionality and extra products.
It was quickly becoming more and more clear that the whole setup would not cover it.
It is obvious the business case needed to be revised to continue with the Vampire products, meaning mass production and higher costs. Generating a budget for future enhancements and products.

Without the last couple of months where the Vampire card proved itself, the whole team behind it wouldn't have made the choice for mass production.

Having said that the Vampire cards are good value for money, even with the new price.
Communication is everything, it's good to know which choices have been made.
I wish the whole Apollo / Vampire team all the best and support them wherever I can.
These are exiting times for all Amiga hobbyists...

 

[Kresko]

Messaged to Kipper,

Thank you so much for your and others involved of course, doing a bad decision by increasing the price, compare to what you said last year (150€). When me and a lot of other people interested had email you (Kipper) and didn't received any answer. Or in my case after I ask you about the total cost of Vampire 2 plus chip ram, ide2cf and joystick adaptor.

Like others already said here, pushing people to the end of the queue, and now sending them to Apollo website to ask the card and not honour your word about low price / affordable a high performance accelerator for A600, aka Vampire 2 at 150€?
Now you and the rest ask 250€ for a regular version or 289€ for the "black edition"? What is this? is the new Individual 1221 accelerator (buy features later to increase you income)?
Also my email was forget? Will I pay 250€ or 289€ or the 150€ as we agree when I send the email on Fri 18-12-2015, 20:11????

Basically I feel betrayed and have the sensation you are just another liar, who start a good project together with Majsta and end we get this kind of crap of situation (chancing the big money).
Also saying is too expensive to send the card to a fabricate faster and cheaper is impossible? since the fabric will ask higher cost?
You certainly don't have any experience about PCB fabrication in Europe... (I'm not saying about playing in Eagle or KiKad EDA, but about cost's of PCB manufacturing).

Oh and almost forget to say, keep in mind, us Europeans, may have to pay to the customs house fee's by buying stuff from outside of Europe, and that will increase the final cost to us...

I just want to know if you guys will keep your word, by selling the original price and keep the order / queue?

- - - Updated - - -

[/QUOTE]I agree with you man! All orders placed before announcement of new price (250euro),should be payed 150 euro!!! This is fair play relationship seller-buyer.
Big mistake of Kipper was that,after he realized,price has to go up,all orders-buyers,after that point must have been informed about price going up!! But no one knows date of that point,or number of order.

After 200,300 orders, it was simple to be said; GUYS I CAN'T PRODUCE THAT NUMBER ALONE WITH MAJSTA, IT MUST BE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND PRICE IS GOING UP.
I was also place an interest before price increase,also had a number of interest on kipper's page,but after this,no. of interest vanished...

After all,bad communication caused all of this...
Silence of kipper,no answering emails,made such confusion and uncertainty !

I have to say: Majsta answered to all my pm's the same day,and I'm thankfull for that !!!

Bottom line is; I'm still interested for Vampire2 A600,but if I'm gonna wait to pay 250 euros I MUST KNOW WHEN I CAN GET IT,otherwise

I'll give up.

Regards to all forum members!

 

[eXeler0]

@1NOM155 and a few others...
Not surprisingly that some will feel cheated because in your mind you were showing interest early on yet you have nothing to show for now that the price increase hits you in the face.

But consider this, when this whole thing started, kipper2k was NOT involved. It was all Majsta. And his prior experience were maybe 80 pre orders of the Vampire V1.
So he was probably expecting something like that again.
But then the project changed and got hyped and the pre orders were flying in. So what to do? Majsta asked kipper for help with production as it was becoming apparent that he could not satisfy demand himself.
But then a while later, suddenly they have something like 600 pre orders.. and people like us who constantly pressure them about A500 and A1200 versions.
Situation becomes intolerable.. something needs to change.
Yes, some people will get hurt in the process. Yes some people will get angry and cancel the order. But it has to happen anyway, because seeing what this project has become, you need alternative solutions or the project will collapse, and Then there will be a lot more unhappy people than there are right now.
Hope you understand...

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[1NOM155]

Vampire boards are being handled in a childish way. We have extremely intelligent people with no eye for business. Kipper2k said this:
"Boards are partially preassembled in Asia. you cannot beat this price, we decided on a low price, it CANNOT! be produced for this price anywhere commercially, We will not increase price to accommodate the unexpected rush that has happened, if this is too much of a wait for people then it has to be. fpga is put on the board by me in a proper reflow oven using correct reflow techniques. I sense you are very unhappy with this process, other retro products can have a waiting process also."
You can confirm this http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=6&note=1955&order=&x=1
After I ask him why they didn't do it on an assembly line.
Of course I'm unhappy with the process, but it's not just me, I think most of the people who are waiting are unhappy with the process.
Now prices got higher, wich i understand, since intel bought altera, they pushed the prices of fpgas up.

I made small quantities of pcbs in the past , with much more complexity than the vampire, and the assembly price would not push the price so much. If they managed to listen or read what people said, we wouldn't be in this situation, there wouldn't be a waiting list for 750 people, because 1000 boards would be assembled in less than 1 week. The price would rise something like 10 euros per board. Now , prices are almost doubled. And all this because of bad decisions. Majsta also is making a desperate atempt to make boards with a home made pnp, and a toasts oven, that won't simply do the job.
Also those people that are in line just to buy the vampire so they can go to evilbay and sell them for 800 euros, should be ashamed, you don't deserve the effort people are putting on this.
Now he's totally making the oposite of what he promised.
I just don't even care i wich postion I'm in. I know it's in a screwd up position. I will just give up on this. In the end Jens in all his arrongant way, has some right points on what he says.

I personally wish the best for this project.
I sincerely believe that is a great project for the Amiga world.


My case is similar to @ 1NOM155.
3 months ago I sent an email and no response. That I did not like.
And now I see that in the last year, the price goes up 2 or 3 times.


Personally, I canceled my order.

We need to leave the negativity out.

The Vampire project started out to prove FPGA's can be used to enhance old Amiga's can be used in ways we have not seen before.

The project is maturing and everbody wants to be on the Vampire train asking for more functionality and extra products.
It was quickly becoming more and more clear that the whole setup would not cover it.
It is obvious the business case needed to be revised to continue with the Vampire products, meaning mass production and higher costs. Generating a budget for future enhancements and products.

Without the last couple of months where the Vampire card proved itself, the whole team behind it wouldn't have made the choice for mass production.

Having said that the Vampire cards are good value for money, even with the new price.
Communication is everything, it's good to know which choices have been made.
I wish the whole Apollo / Vampire team all the best and support them where ever I can.
These are exiting times for all Amiga hobbyists...

To summarize don't bother with my feeling about this situation, all of the interested in the card, are free to do whatever you want, but keep in mind this only show they (Apollo Group) don't know how to run a project, from start to finish (including selling), that's why I need to agree unfortunately with Jens from Individual Computers and Marmes, the way you ran the project has childish...

Even the increase of price caused by Intel, doesn't mean the inflation of price needed to be over 100€.

Plus I'm not asking you kill your self's making cards and not having real life, but try to put in my situation, and like Harkonnen75 said, you increase price by the 3rd time, that doesn't give you a honest reputation. If you (Kipper) had sent an email, like something saying "I'm sorry I can't take more orders since I'm starting to lose money" or something similar, but send us a damn email, not putting some random info on your website and didn't saying anything, by putting us on the limbo of silence...

Now the ball is on your side, if you want to honour your word or not, just answer the damn emails...

- - - Updated - - -

@1NOM155 and a few others...
Not surprisingly that some will feel cheated because in your mind you were showing interest early on yet you have nothing to show for now that the price increase hits you in the face.

But consider this, when this whole thing started, kipper2k was NOT involved. It was all Majsta. And his prior experience were maybe 80 pre orders of the Vampire V1.
So he was probably expecting something like that again.
But then the project changed and got hyped and the pre orders were flying in. So what to do? Majsta asked kipper for help with production as it was becoming apparent that he could not satisfy demand himself.
But then a while later, suddenly they have something like 600 pre orders.. and people like us who constantly pressure them about A500 and A1200 versions.
Situation becomes intolerable.. something needs to change.
Yes, some people will get hurt in the process. Yes some people will get angry and cancel the order. But it has to happen anyway, because seeing what this project has become, you need alternative solutions or the project will collapse, and Then there will be a lot more unhappy people than there are right now.
Hope you understand...

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I understand you, but not what they have done.
I offer help to mass produce that in Europe to decrease time waiting and costs since I know a company in Portugal who is capable of doing the card, even when I don't know nothing about PCB specs, only have a picture to show to that company to get an idea if they are capable or not to make the card.
But the answer was negative, Majsta was afraid someone outside of the project may still that.... Only what I can say is if you would listen me in that time you and Kipper hadn't this situation, I never want or wanted the original schematics, only "Gerber" files and with that I can't do nothing... rather than ask the company to mass produce the boards.

Anyway, I hope Majsta or Kipper say something about this.

Regards,


PS I'm not asking for the project fail, never wanted that, even if people think that about my "vent"... Only want what is fair, honour your deals, and only that.

 

[Marmes]

That explanation has consistance. But, help was offered several times, more money was offered several times, and that help was allways refused. I think when we have more than 600 interested people and we know what we are doing, I think we accept the offer, if they are really interested in selling those boards. Kipper2k allways insisted that it was the best way and prices would not be touched if they did by hand. Now we see what's going on. Great technical knowledge, but no comercial or people skills. Of course they can allways say no more boards I would like to see Vampire prices on Ebay . It's easier to have a mist or even a FPGA arcade.

@1NOM155 and a few others...
Not surprisingly that some will feel cheated because in your mind you were showing interest early on yet you have nothing to show for now that the price increase hits you in the face.

But consider this, when this whole thing started, kipper2k was NOT involved. It was all Majsta. And his prior experience were maybe 80 pre orders of the Vampire V1.
So he was probably expecting something like that again.
But then the project changed and got hyped and the pre orders were flying in. So what to do? Majsta asked kipper for help with production as it was becoming apparent that he could not satisfy demand himself.
But then a while later, suddenly they have something like 600 pre orders.. and people like us who constantly pressure them about A500 and A1200 versions.
Situation becomes intolerable.. something needs to change.
Yes, some people will get hurt in the process. Yes some people will get angry and cancel the order. But it has to happen anyway, because seeing what this project has become, you need alternative solutions or the project will collapse, and Then there will be a lot more unhappy people than there are right now.
Hope you understand...

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