98 replies to this topic

[e5frog]

SOLD OUT!


There's a cart reserved for sale on eBay, all money from that auction will be used to make the Multi-Cart box.




I promised to start taking pre-orders on Pac-Man after the first working prototype -


so let me know if you want one.




I guess there are two types of pre-orders, pre-paid and then simply a queue
(line) of interested people. Those who are pre-paid are considered pre-orders
here and others are put on a list of interested people.

All pre-orders will of course be shipped in order of made payments
and the queue will be handled one at a time from first one on the list to the last.
I will offer the first person on the list a cartridge at the best price I can currently
give and if declined at that price I'll ask the next one.


All pre-orders will be shipped, but I make no promise on those in queue.


I'm just adding up a number out of my head, an approximate amount of what
all parts cost and what the postage is outside EC (as I imagine most of you are).


For a pre-order I currently charge $120, that includes postage
to anywhere in the world and all other types of fees that I might come across.
Price is subject to change if there are additional costs or changes in currency
conversions etc.
If you have made a payment of the current charge you will however not be asked
for more money - I'll take that loss.


I'll also issue a part-of-the-money-back if I am able to build them at a significantly
lower price, let's say $15 lower or more. The more orders I get the more parts I
can order at the same time and the price will of course be lower - I'm sure you're
familiar with the concept.


No cartridges will be sold until the current two "raise-some-money"-carts have been
sold or until I have two pre-orders. I need that money to order parts.
Here's the first one auctioned out:
http://www.atariage....howtopic=137441


Box and instructions are currently not included, if I do decide to make instructions
and/or box I will send these out asap to all buyers (give-away).


Payments are welcome via Paypal.com, just click below to make a pre-payment:



Other payment options are perhaps welcome as well, send me a message.


If you need to read more about it, there's a thread here.


Answer here and I'll make a list below.



Pre-ordered:

Two Pre-orders (paid) - gets Pac-Man #6 and #7.


"Interested in buying"-list:

* Cart has been sent
+ Payment has been received
- Denied current offer
. Have been asked but no reply/ no payment
~ Finished but not shipped

* chuys450
* retrogmr
* Godzilla
- BassGuitari
* Numan
* cvga
- Segataritensofti...
* toymailman
. jeffgamer
* Bill_Loguidice
Crazy Climber (at a price around $50)
* AtariRx
* Disco Scottie
* j_eits (not on this forum)
. FABombjoy
. brucebidder
* Nick Frazee (not on this forum)
doug0909 (at a price around $50)
- Atari2008
. Rob Mitchell
* swlovinist
* Howard Frazee (not on this forum)
atarinut76

Update, the whole owner's list:

Made from SABA #20 carts:
1 Conny
2 Dennis
3 Ian
Made from large home made PCBs:
4 Claes
5 Rikard
6 Jose
7 Larry
8 Mikael
9 Mark
10 Kai
11 James
12 Charles
13 Peter
Professional PCBs
14 Kevin
15 Bill
16 Scottie
17 Jens
18 John
19 Nickolas
20 Howard
21 Matt T
22 PingvinBlueJeans
23 Jose M
24 Jeffrey O'C
Smaller PCB, prototyped version, SMD circuits where possible
25 Kevin C
26 GreatGuy
27 Freiztan
New pro PCB, similar to the one above
28 Rob
29 Jeff R
30 Emmanuel D
31 Jason S
32 Anthony W
33 Luke S
34 Michael C
35 Jason B
36 Russ P
37 Dennis
38 Scott S
+39 Rick M
40 Christopher W
41 Mattias P
--------- End of 2010 ---------
+42 Kimmo P
+43 Lance B
+44 Jan-Erik
+45 T.B.C.
46 VGE
47 Zeela
48 -reserved-
+49 Tim Ryan
+50 For myself, I think I'll call it #0 though.

END - no more Pac-Man carts.

Edited by e5frog, Tue Apr 26, 2011 12:31 AM.

[Bill_Loguidice]

I'm supporting you 100% on this and would love one, but I have to be perfectly honest and say that $120 is way beyond what I typically pay even on the high end for something like this. Do you see getting this down to $80 or less, inclusive of shipping, at any point? At the $120 price point, that's typically for a loaded multi-cart or high capacity (relative to the platform) flash cart.

[e5frog]

As I have mentioned it's an initial price just to be able to get more parts.

Price will probably change but I can't promise it will be cheaper as it's
a very small market, not like Vectrex or Atari 2600...

[Godzilla]

Hugely interested, even at the $120 price point, but I would need some time to make that dollar figure Put me in the que, no matter what, though. Thanks!

[toymailman]

Put me in the queue as well, and if a multi-cart is ever made then I'm down for that too.

Don't know if I can go to $120 though.

[Crazy Climber]

This makes me want to buy a Channel F
As stated by others though, $120 is a bit out of my range If I was a serios channel F collector though I would be all over this.

[e5frog]

If I understand correctly Crazy Climber does also want to be on the list.

[FABombjoy]

I am interested as well, but only at a lower price point.

If I may ask, what is the major expense? Do you need rare donor carts, or out of production ICs?

[Crazy Climber]

e5frog, on Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:13 AM, said:

If I understand correctly Crazy Climber does also want to be on the list.

I would be interested if we were talking around $50 give or take. I know nothing of Channel F production costs so if this is an impossible price point then I would decline but if this is something that could be done then yes, put me on the list

[e5frog]

FABombjoy, on Wed Jan 14, 2009 4:06 PM, said:

I am interested as well, but only at a lower price point.

If I may ask, what is the major expense? Do you need rare donor carts, or out of production ICs?

I'd say the major expense is shipping costs, gathering all parts at very low amounts are costly not because the parts are very expensive but the shipping on them. That's why I hoped to get a long list of interested people - to be able to make one big buy, I don't dare order a bunch of parts that I can't sell at a later point.

Starting costs for making PCB:s, boxes, instructions are also a great expense, I'll see if we can get there eventually.


I know this is a system with very little interest, I also hope to increase that interest by releasing new games for all to enjoy on their real units. If you know anyone with a Channel F - tell them to get on the list for a Pac-Man cart - the more who wants to buy the better they'll get.

Edited by e5frog, Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:41 PM.

[Segataritensoftii]

Count me in to the list or interested persons.

Unfortunately, it will take me quite some time to save up $120.

Edited by Segataritensoftii, Thu Jan 15, 2009 5:04 PM.

[ianoid]

I would be touting my interest but I've alredady arranged a cart from frog. He has an obsession with qualitythat is unsurpassed. Since parts are tough to come up with, and these take a while to make, I can see it is very hard to do these homebrews. I hope amy of you that can, will support this project. Of course the price point is stiff and ChF is not at the top of peoples lists of favorite systems. It is one of my favs.

[Wickeycolumbus]

e5frog,

Where are you getting all the 3853 chips for the Pac Man carts From? Or did you find a different solution to the problem...

-Rick

Edited by Wickeycolumbus, Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:24 PM.

[e5frog]

I buy them from the US, I've only found one supplier (well, actually a friend of mine found them) with reasonable prices, and if I can sell the two carts and get pre-orders (paid ones) to a sum of $250 I can buy enough to get them at half the price - so double the amount of circuits for the $200 - well, the postage might be a little more.

Without those there would be no carts at all for (probably) a long long time...


Sean was working on a solution, it included one of the latest PIC32, no other circuits were fast enough or had enough I/O, of course it might have been feasable using an FPGA circuit of some sort, but that's not the way he wanted to go.

It's a bit tricky making a VHDL (or Verilog) description of it since the documentation is poor on some ROMC-states, I don't know if Sean has done some extensive study on those - but he´s pretty good with these things, a technical wiz' if you like - he's on my list of admired people at least.

I'm a little interested in how the built-in timer works, I'll explore that some time, it seems the Chess-cartridge might use the timer since the interrupt has been enabled on the SMI.

[Wickeycolumbus]

e5frog, on Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:15 PM, said:

I buy them from the US, I've only found one supplier (well, actually a friend of mine found them) with reasonable prices

They are still being sold!? That is awesome! Have you ever thought about selling blank PCBs for other people to tinker around with? I know I would love to buy one!

[e5frog]

Yes, NOS, I hardly think anyone still makes them. The ones I bought last were from 1986 made by Mostek.

If I get to the point where I can order a batch of them from a professional manufacturer - yes that would be possible.

[brucebidder]

Throw me on the list.... Been waiting for this since I heard about it from fnd...\


Bruce

[e5frog]

Now two pre-payments made, parts are ordered.

[Numan]

I'm ok with the price.

[doug0909]

This is great; I'd be interested but I think $50.00 would be my price-point as well...

[Godzilla]

I got number 10 I can't wait to get it!

[Atari2008]

Okay, I'm in. Please add me to the list.

[Rob Mitchell]

Interested .. in a price drop ..

Rob Mitchell

[e5frog]

I updated the list in the first message.

[Numan]

The game is alot of fun.