[Community] Status GTA04A5

[Robert 'Bobby' Zenz]

Hello Nikolaus.

Thanks for the update.

Do you have any figures you can share with us regarding the
price/amount ratio? Something like "100 buyers and we get it for €
350,- each", or at least a rough estimation?

Best Regards,
Bobby

On Thu, 11 Jul 2013 11:44:37 +0200
"Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller" <hns at goldelico.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> I think it is again time to discuss the status of the GTA04A5 boards.
> 
> Schematics are done, Layout almost finished. And yesterday I talked
> to the production company and they would have capacity.
> 
> One minor issue is that we don't exactly know which components
> have become obsolete and need to be replaced (which may touch
> the layout again if they are not a drop-in pin-compatible
> replacement).
> 
> But all these technical things are easy to solve if some energy is
> invested.
> 
> We currently have these figures of entries on the wishlist:
> 
> 9	GTA04 Motherboards
> 9	Letux 2804 (i.e. built into GTA02 case)
> 3	Letux 7004
> 
> This makes 21 boards which is still far from becoming economically
> feasible, especially since some of the 21 wishes have quite
> challenging price expectations (e.g. 160 EUR for a Letux 7004 or 200
> EUR for a GTA04 board). This indicates valid wishes, but is also an
> indicator that they will not buy if we produce and offer at real
> production cost. And nobody would sponsor something.
> 
> This all is understandable since commercial devices and failed
> projects like Vivaldi/Spark have set the bar of expectations to a
> level that is not achievable by our project.
> 
> I see it now like the olympic games of phone&computer integration
> which did run for approx. 10 years and did end in 2012.
> Samsung/Android have won the Gold medal, Apple/iOS the silver medal.
> And for the community projects it was nice to have participated - but
> no medal.
> 
> So the tournament is over. IMHO, Linux has reached the "palmtop". 
> Pushing for getting Linux on non-linux devices and Linux capable
> hardware to the masses (like Openmoko did pioneer) is no longer
> required, because it is done. And sponsors are not spending money any
> more, because there is no need to push Linux any more.
> 
> What happens between Olympic games? Training for the next game.
> 
> So other topics are on the horizon: security, energy efficiency,
> useability, operating system improvements, ...
> 
> Back to the GTA04A5 hardware plans, we all have to wait for more
> wishes (from people accepting a price premium for freedom) to be
> registered.
> 
> And wait for new ideas growing from this community. The GTA04 hardware
> could still help better than any other platform because it has become
> quite mature, is flexible, well documented and well understood, i.e.
> creative people can focus on inventing new things and find people who
> know the GTA04 details.
> 
> I am curious about the new ideas to appear in this community...
> 
> BR,
> Nikolaus
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