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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

V600 V2page  1 2 

Daniele Bucelli

Posts 20
06 Sep 2018 19:23


Yes Vojin, it would be great to have his signature on the box, because this project is a milestone for the Amiga contest and history. Gunnar and Majsta are the guys who make this possible. For nostalgic people like me, it's amazing to see a real progress in the Amiga tecnology, after all this time. Can't wait to receive it and put it in my beloved collection. (well, what still remain of it)
But we are going out of topic… :D



Mallagan Bellator

Posts 393
06 Sep 2018 21:25


Well wasn’t that nice of Gunnar? :)

I agree that they should care about what the resellers do with the product and how they treat it, bad handling is bad PR, no doubt. There’s probably things to look into about that.

Daniele, as to answer your direct question to me, I don’t have a vampire at all. Been thinking of getting a V2 500+ or however it’s really named, while waiting for the A1200 version of V4. Also, money.........

:)

I don’t have an A600


Daniele Bucelli

Posts 20
07 Sep 2018 06:25


I can understand… money are been my problem too… Recently i had to sell my beloved expanded (060 80MHz) 1200. I tought "well, when the Vampire 1200 will come out, i'll take one for my second 1200 that i was keeping for spare). But the 1200 version is taking time, and after few time, i was missing to listen MOD music, and play some old games with WHDLOAD, like i was used to do, time by time… So, i've sold some more things from my collection, and i've managed to have some extra money to invest in this V600. Anyway, Vampire is expensive, and it's a pity to make sacrifices, to receive a loose board, with ruined PCB. I'm still disappointed, even because noone has replied to my emails with the pictures of the damage...and unfortunately, the same is for the box… silence…
I didn't test the board yet, so, i can't reply to the question "is it working?". Anyway, thinking about the situation, i'd like to share what i think: Vampire is born like an "hobby project", hand made, and cheap. At the beginning the boards were sold earning almost nothing. The price was only 120€. I think that for that time, a situation like mine was perfectly acceptable, because it was cheap, because it was clear that it was a one man project in wich Majsta was putting big efforts to produce as many boards as possible to satisfy every request, so, small issues on the PCB were phisiological, as well as no packaging etc... But today, the "one man project" is grown, and, with a big team, resellers, forums and not last the huge price, it is supposed to be a "commercial project", and not an "hobby project" anymore. For this reason i belive that even the quality and customer support MUST be adeguate. I feel to spend some words for the reseller too: i mean, buying the board from the Apollo team directly, the price is 300€, Amedia ask for 379€+ 18€ shipping +9.90 PayPal fees!!! It make a total of 406.90€. If you pretend to earn 79€ euros, you should give the right aftersale support, and honestly, asking 18€ more, to ship the box that is supposed to be received with the board, is not fair. They say that the Apollo team doesn't send the adeguate number of boxes, so they can't supply the board with his box (for me it's difficult to belive, even because the boards are supposed to be shipped inside the boxes), the Apollo team is not replying to my questions (they didn't confirm this), and in the meanwhile, i did big sacrifices to buy the board, selling other items from my collection, and i received it with a big burn spot on it (corrected with paint), and without the box! But i did pay like other customers who has received their board in big shape and in their original package (and even alot more, because of the reseller).
I belive that all this is not fair, and it is not right to just say "this is not the right place to talk about this", because infact, i haven't another way to communicate. The seller doesn't care...the team doesn't care...but both did take my money.I did expect the right support from both. Now, feel free to comment, and attack me because i'm out of topic, because the vampire team is nice (they are absolutely Amazing, because of all the incredible work they did, but this doesn't really matter with all this) etc... 


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
07 Sep 2018 07:28


Daniele Bucelli wrote:

  But today, the "one man project" is grown, and, with a big team, resellers, forums and not last the huge price, it is supposed to
 

 
  While I love non corporate style in which things are done,I sometimes too miss packaging, printed manuals (real ones), boxed installation media etc. But not only with Apollo. My x1000 came with almost none, so opposite is standard of today capitalism.
 
  I do understand the criticism and hope some aspects CAN and WILL be improved with v4 series ... I fail to see HUGE price of Vampire.
 
  See how much Phake 5 intends to sell 90s hardware redone etc. etc.

Daniele Bucelli wrote:
 
For this reason i belive that even the quality and customer support MUST be adeguate
 

khm,Apollo does NOT have any customer support. Just us users and team members :-)

So, what is the real problem, beside prices and boxes? My Windows 10 DVD came in paper case with poor print on it and costed like 100+ euros. I could order cheaper from M$ in US, but decided to go to local dealer.



Peter Heginbotham

Posts 214
07 Sep 2018 09:18


hmmm this topic has drift a little from the recapping of a Kipper2k Vampire V600


Adam Whittaker
(Needs Verification)
Posts 270/ 1
07 Sep 2018 12:54


the guy does raise an interesting question... why are they so expensive now? i paid 120 euro for mine from majsta and its awesome... it was more awesome from a price point and at that price i didnt expect anything other than the bare board - if your paying hundreds of euros then i agree it should packaged accordingly!


Mr Niding

Posts 459
07 Sep 2018 12:58


Adam Whittaker wrote:

  the guy does raise an interesting question... why are they so expensive now? i paid 120 euro for mine from majsta and its awesome... it was more awesome from a price point and at that price i didnt expect anything other than the bare board - if your paying hundreds of euros then i agree it should packaged accordingly!
 

 
Remember Kipper quit the project alltogether due to stress, overwork AND actually ending up loosing money.
You could say some of it was selfinflicted cause he was being too nice, and tried to keep it supercheap by shopping for budget parts to the extent possible, which led to some being bad. A hit he took on his own wallet.
 
So you could say the pricehike was up to a more sustainable and realistic level, instead of the sweatshop level Kipper put himself thru.
 
Bless his heart for going that far, but in the end it broke his will to keep going.


Igor Majstorovic
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 406
07 Sep 2018 12:59


@Daniele Bucelli can you please contact me on our irc # I m there all the time. Had no idea that you have such problem. We will deal with this so nothing to worry about. I was trying to search for your mail in my database to contact you but couldn't find anything. So best way is on irc at freenode #apollo-team


Peter Heginbotham

Posts 214
07 Sep 2018 15:39


The wholesale price for the FPGA increased dramatically


Mr-Z EdgeOfPanic

Posts 189
07 Sep 2018 17:37


Peter Heginbotham wrote:

The wholesale price for the FPGA increased dramatically

Other parts too and the fact the cards are being being assembled fully automatic now at a factory also adds to the price.




Daniele Bucelli

Posts 20
07 Sep 2018 20:06


Hi Igor, thanks for your reply. I did try to join IRC, but unfortunately it doesn't authenticate me. I did wrote 2 emails to the email address present under "contact". Please, if you can, reply to my emails. I'll wait for some news. Thanks.




Mallagan Bellator

Posts 393
08 Sep 2018 11:03


I don’t agree with that this isn’t the place to talk about the kind of problem that Daniele went through here, it’s a quite important part of the whole picture, and something others could experience as well.
Getting no answer is pretty frustrating, especially after paying such a price!

It’s not cheap, but still not extremely expensive, but it IS quite a lot of money.
We’re talking about taking care of those who buy the product here, and if Daniele wouldn’t have posted about it here, who knows if Majsta had even heard of it and got in contact.

So yeah, this can be the place to talk about it.
Or is that taboo?


Igor Majstorovic
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 406
08 Sep 2018 15:05


@Mallagan Bellator
Right way is to open separate topic not use some other. Nothing is taboo here. Every complaint is actually good. I have posted number of pictures online showing what is going on when things goes bad with our cards. Complaints only makes stuff improved nothing else. As I said there wont be any single person dissapointed with dealing with me, ever. So this will be resolved very quickly.

@Daniele Bucelli send me mail at imajstorovic at yahoo . com pls.



Gernt Gerloff

Posts 49
08 Sep 2018 21:24


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
Gernt Gerloff wrote:

 
Renaud Schweingruber wrote:

  We recommend help of a professional.
 

   
  And if you don't know a "professional", you are fucked, but who cares you paid already.
 

 
  Btw my son who is eleven years now, did also had an early weaker Vampire from Kippa. My son did solder this upgrade to his card when he was ten years. So its really not rocket science to do this.
 

 
  Do you try to mock me? Nice move.
 
 
Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  Speaking of minors, please mind that minors are also reading here and mind the language that you use.
 

 
  Sure, do you mind suggest an alternative phrase? I wasted a lot of money on a device which do not work (the x10 works better but still far from good) and nobody cares + now the producer makes fun of me.
  I want to have a handy phrase at hand for next time.
 


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
08 Sep 2018 21:44


Gernt Gerloff wrote:

  and nobody cares + now the producer makes fun of me.
  I want to have a handy phrase at hand for next time. 
 

   
You seem to be confused.
   
We understood that you got your card from Kippa.
So he is the producer not me.
   
People tried to help you with advice, I ensured you the soldering is not complex. If needed my son can help you doing the soldering.
   
We offer free support and update cores here.
My advice: Either you keep the card running the core version it came with when you bought it, or when you want to use the newest cores then follow our advice to upgrade it.
 
Mind that I did not sell you the card, and I did not produce it.
Make sure you complain to the right person and not to persons offering you help.


Mallagan Bellator

Posts 393
09 Sep 2018 09:31


igor majstorovic wrote:

@Mallagan Bellator
  Right way is to open separate topic not use some other. Nothing is taboo here. Every complaint is actually good. I have posted number of pictures online showing what is going on when things goes bad with our cards. Complaints only makes stuff improved nothing else. As I said there wont be any single person dissapointed with dealing with me, ever. So this will be resolved very quickly.
 
  @Daniele Bucelli send me mail at imajstorovic at yahoo . com pls.
 

Fair enough! Good reply, Majsta


Mallagan Bellator

Posts 393
09 Sep 2018 09:38


I can really see how it can be really frustrating developing stuff like this, and there are lots of people involved with the project, and when people complain about stuff not working, they don’t know where to turn, and therefore the wrong people get the complaints... trying to make something good requires support from those that it’s targeted to, not complaints.

You’re all doing a good job, keep it up! Soon enough, the whole product will be perfect

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