----- Original Message ----- From: "P Witte" <> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 9:20 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] Spare GC or SGC?
As a final thought Quanta could stimulate this by making a prize (£XXXXs > X-prize) for the first team to say design and make a prototype processor > upgrade > add on board or USB driver or whatever, >Id vote for Quanta to fund hardware developments, that would be good for >the general ambience, even though Im unlikely to buy another piece of QL >hardware kit myself. Much as I would like to see Quanta using its capital to fund QL development, I think you have to remain realistic. At QL2004 I spoke to Nasta over how you could finance a new expansion card with the possibility of Quanta financing in mind. His reply was not encouraging. Basically you are in an "all or nothing" situation. You have to first of design your board on paper and try very hard to make sure it will be a working board. Once you start to actually build the hardware, then you cannot talk in terms of an initial prototype and then later full production. This is, among other things, because the availability and price of chips in in constant flux. If your paper design proves to work in practice, fine. If it doesn't you may be able to get it to work by a bit of tweaking. You can also be in a situation in which you get now return whatsoever on the capital. In other words Quanta could give £5,000 of members' money to develop a card and see no return on that money whatsoever. It would be a very brave committee who would be prepared to take that risk. It certainly would be grossly unfair to expect a committee of just 4 people to take such an important and risky decision, Best Wishes, Geoff _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
