[Coco] Re: [Color Computer] Is this a discussion about a new Coco?

[Boisy G. Pitre]

On Apr 18, 2005, at 5:45 PM, James Diffendaffer wrote:
>
> Oh please... $65?  What chip are you using?  There are pleanty of
> controller chips for under $15 in single quantity... not my fault if
> you chose an expensive one.  Geeze... a Coldfire CPU with built in
> ethernet, USB and PCI is less than $40 in small quantity!  I could
> build a board based on a coldfire and a couple PCI chips, a PLD and
> emulate the $%#& thing cheaper and faster.

Hi James,

This is Boisy Pitre, the other half of Cloud-9. I think I can speak to 
some of your questions.

We chose the ConnectOne chip as our ethernet and TCP/IP stack solution 
because it uses a simple serial interface to allow us to do some very 
high level work, like sending/receiving mail and doing things like 
serving web pages.  The idea here was to push the TCP/IP stack into 
hardware and focus on alleviating myself the burden of writing a TCP/IP 
stack on the CoCo under NitrOS-9 (which itself would be a project).  
It's not just the ethernet chip that we are talking about, but also the 
intelligence behind doing all of the protocols that this thing does.  
See http://www.connectone.com/ for more details.

If you know of something cheaper with the same functionality, we're all 
ears.

> Cloud-9 is charging over $100 for an IDE board! IDE!!!!  And we're not
> talking about UDMA here either.  All that requires is to adjust some
> buss logic and decode the address!  It requires around 4 TTL chips (if
> you don't overdesign the thing) for under $10 at Radio Shack!

Mark is in a better position to defend his hardware pricing, but I 
don't see it as out of line.  Supply and demand in this market seems to 
support the prices we set.

>
>> It is easier for you to sit back and do
>> nothing but critique other peoples work and say it is too expensive.
>>
>> I can tell by your previous posts that you have done VERY little with
>> developing products.
>
> I used to own a company that built hardware for the Amiga, some of
> which I designed, I know what I'm talking about.  We were selling more
> hardware in a week that Cloud-9 has sold since it was started.
> A.I.R. sold over $750,000 worth of product (1 product) in the first 6
> months and it took us over half of that time just to build up
> manufacturing ability and a dealer network.  At the time I sold out we
> were doing about $90,000 per month and had 4(?) products.

That's great.  Why exactly then are you on the attack here?  If you 
want to design your own product, then by all means go ahead.  Live and 
let live.  I think Mark took issue with how you worded your original 
post.  "$350 - $450 for something that should cost less than $100 in 
parts is why I won't be interested."  The implication here is that 
Cloud-9 is overcharging for its product.  I believe that not to be the 
case.

>
>> With the given facts, you are WAY off base on your price and 
>> statement.
>
> According to you... a guy that will spend $65 on an ethernet
> controller and who sells an IDE board for $100.

Surely you aren't suggesting that just because this is a hobby for a 
small market, that we give away our time and effort?

You don't have to buy our products or agree with our pricing structure. 
   At the same time, respect the intelligence of the people who are our 
customers and who do support us by buying our product.  The market is 
bearing the price just fine, and both Cloud-9 and its customers are 
satisfied.
--
Boisy G. Pitre
E-Mail: boisy at boisypitre.com
Mobile: (337) 781-3997
Web: www.boisypitre.com



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