At 02:42 �� 5/1/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>Hello, > > > What does it take to reverse this state of fortune? You have to revive the > > marketplace, or generate a new marketplace that's ideally suited to those > > users. It has to be able to generate income. It has to have lots of users > > that are willing to spend lots of money... > > > > How would you do that? > > > > You have to have hardware or software so compelling, people simply have to > > buy it. It also has to look like, or share a major characteristic with the > > original products. > >This new (for the QL) marketplace does exist. > >I had published here and in Quanta a long article about the QL as a >education toy >(when was it? nov 99?). It would not require the fastest possible machine, >but a QL based on the Dragonball processor and designed at the lowest >possible cost. Which is also an interesting challenge, I think, for a >hardware >designer. With a QL based design, it would be possible to do better >than any of the existing toys. Hence I believe that the possible market >would be >at least 5000/10000, possibly up to 50 000 per year. > >However this idea did not raise much interest. Arnould is right... I started designing some sprites for that but then my daughter came along :-))) and my spare time was thrown out of the window (It happens when you are a stay-at-home dad) However I am still working on them and hopefully will have them ready sometime within the next couple of months now that she grew up a little bit... Having my daughter and being in the US gave me a great insight on toys I'll tell you! Especially the company Arnould was thinking about: VTECH is a major player. Some of the toys (and that's another reason why I haven't been able to afford a Q60.... ) are very sophisticated and HELL VERY EXPENSIVE TOO!. Last year alone we spent around $ 2K for toys ALONE! From my parental experience right now I can tell you that there is indeed a very viable market for smart toys. Our latest acquisition is a thing called SmartAlex. It's a talking book with mechanical eyes and mouth which includes voice recognition technology from Lerner&Hauspie (www.lh.com ) plus sensors to interact with the child. Additionally it is remote controlled and dependent on a PC for voice generation and movements. Something like that instead of being tied to a PC could incorporate a SBC incarnation of the QL without Video (like the IBOX which btw would have A VERY VIABLE market on Security Systems or Home Automation) with the addition of a sound chip and maybe Hermes and its underlying technology, paired again with either TF's RomDisQ for storage (or CF etc) all of which could be made really cheap with off the shelf components really. What I do really think we need is to have some sort of cooperative like RiscOS Ltd. (Made by the users for the users in a non-profit form that would save a lot of taxes too... leave the taxes to the Greeks... we don't pay them anyway ;-)) that could negotiate projects like that to companies (until we could have the funds to produce them on our own). The full-blown "attack" on the major computer market could come later on. The most important thing would be to conserve the platform and turn it into a money making one... Once again, toys might sound very UNserious but I can assure you it's a very serious business with turnovers annually ranking in the $billions. Another project that could be very exciting and viable would be a set-top box like WebTV or a hard-disk based VCR like TiVO both of which could be constructed based around the QL. (for the first one a friend of mine using my Aurora Setup took a lot of steps, but unfortunately was called away (around the globe) and he left it unfinished (and I lost his tracks too)... And something else for computer ideas. Many seem stupid at one time but yet return with a vengeance ;-) Take for example the Z88... It wasn't really popular (in terms of what a PDA or Notebook is nowadays ) on its time.... yet yesterday browsing my new TigerDirect catalog (www.tigerdirect.com) I saw a machine called QuickPad Pro for $329.... Hell it not only looks like a Z88, it does less than a Z88 and is bigger too... BUT IT SELLS... in the US!!!! Phoebus
