partial P112 kits

[A. Christoff Baumann]

On Jun 22, 2010, at 11:33 AM, Tony Duell wrote:

> So hang on, if most of the board is SMD and comes pre-done, just what do 
> you get to build yourself?

There's a lot of stuff still to assemble in a P112.  There's a fairly high discrete count, as well as a big handful of chips (RAM, Flash, support ICs), more jumper pins than I care to mention, and the all-important battery holder.   When the P112 comes out of the envelope it comes in it doesn't look anywhere near assembled (see a pic at http://p112.feedle.net/pics/kit-parts.jpg).

This discussion is now largely irrelevant now, anyway.  If you want to buy a P112 kit bare, I've got bare boards and chips on offer, and it is likely there will be enough parts in an unassembled state to meet any demand for them.  I believe you've already stated you have no intention of buying one anyway, so I fail to see how further discussion is fruitful.  Buy one of the bare boards or don't.  

My opinion is, and remains, that the P112 in the form Dave and I originally packaged the last production run (and will likely package this one) meets the needs of the people it was designed for.  Both of us have received tons of positive feedback from our customers (you know, the people we're doing this for), and it is my belief that it is an excellent bridge between those used to working with modern computer-on-a-chip microcontrollers (the Stamp, Propeller, and Arduino crowd) and the world of retrocomputing.  You've done nothing to sway that opinion, and likely won't: further, all the strong talk in this thread of how "SMD as hard is bullshit" and everything else from people who have outright stated they wouldn't be in the market for it anyway has just proven to me that we're doing the right thing for those who do want it.

I'd love to be proven wrong and sell out my inventory of bare boards and parts.  I somehow suspect my post office box will remain empty for some time.