Ok, I'm ripping this idea off another forum, but hey!

Here are the facts:

a) We like Alison :)
b) We think she's a great HW developer
c) We dealed with her and we can say that she's an absolutely fantastic, good mannered, proffesional, etc. lady and we'll gladly deal with her anytime :)
d) We want a neat CF to ACSI solution!
e) We want to motivate her to finish WeST

So we're trying to gather as much interest as possible, so she can be motivated to finish it :)

You ask "What's a WeST?". In her own words:


Quote:

Ah, WeST. I want one. I just can't get the motivation. This Scart/VGA thing will spark it off if there's interest in it like there was when PeST was launched. Over the last few days with moving this and that, a WeST would be so handy. It's almost finished. It communicates on both sides, that's the hardest bit and tested, it's just getting it to say the right things which needs to be finished. I kind of have a reputation for doing that, ...enthusiastically starting a project and doing the difficult impossible bits, then losing interest. WeST, if ever I finish it, is imagined to be about 2inches square!! And that's it! SD card socket on the back. 2.1mm power connecter. I was even having silly ideas of putting a rechargable battery on it so it could run standalone. It draws about 150mA, mainly due to the high MIPS of the MCU. And given that most 4.5v board batteries are something like 400mA I'm wondering if the size could be justified. The whole board would be encased in heatshrink like PeST, and a battery would really mess that up. Could just have a 9v radio battery hanging out if someone wants portable. I want it to be about 2inches square. And I haven't even had a professional prototype PCB made yet, which would be much larger. Once it's all finalised, it then goes SMD.

and


Quote:

I was developing WeST which is a CF card ACSI hard disk interface, just that the newcomers expect to pay like a tenner for it and then start complaining about how much it costs. Fine. Solution is simple. I'll (we'll) do something else. I was getting transfer rates well up to the DMA maximum of 1MB/second. As purely I was proud of what I was doing so put the time into the it's development. It's took months of 8-hour days to develop something that not only worked but had full CRC capability too. Microcontrollers with lots of I/O and which run at 40MIPS ain't cheap!! About £15-20 a go if you're splitting hairs. Now if I was buying them by the thousand then maybe lets say £8-9. The reason why your USB card reader for your PC only cost a tenner is that they made 5-million of the things in China!!!!!!!

So, if you're serious about getting one, please reply to this post, stating how many interfaces would you be interested to get. I can't get a price quotation at the moment. Maybe in due time. All will depend on demand I guess!

So, get replying ;)

(P.S. the 256 is just a fictional number I made up! Besides, $100 is a round rumber, right? :P )

I'll have one if Alison autographs it :)

Oops, CJ was too fast for me, and I forgot to state my interest in the inital post :)

I'll surely buy one, maybe a second one, I'll have to think about it. Go Aly go!

Ok, current scores are (collected from this forum and various others):

GGN: 1 or 2
CJ: 1 authographed :P
Guitarman: 1 or 2
STeSearcher: 1
Showaddywaddy: 1
Roger Burrows: Maybe 1
Jim DeClercq: 2
JamesD: Maybe 1
Stephen S.: Maybe 1
dukko: 1
Goochman: 1
BDAqua: 2 or 3
Nyder: Maybe 1
Christos: 1
Heavy Stylus: 1

Totals
-------
Confirmed: 12
Maybes: 7
Autographed: 1

Ok, count me in too.... itr's a D-Bug conspiracy!


Shw

Got this e-mail just now:


Quote:

Hi! I'd buy 1 at a price in the 50GBP range.  I don't think it's likely to come in much cheaper, and at (say) 100GBP it would probably be out of my price range. Roger Burrows

So, added to the "maybe" list, until we get a fixed price

Another mail from Jim DeClercq (hope I understood that correctly!):


Quote:

2. Reachable as jimd@[...].com and as declercq@[...].com, if the firewall lets you through.

So, another 2 :)

From JamesD on c.s.a.s.:


Quote:

Saying that i would still be interested for around the 50GBP mark - can't have too many gadgets!! :)

So, one 'maybe' :)

And from Stephen S. on atari.org:


Quote:

I was not really aware of the SatanDisk, nor this, so I applaud and encourage both projects. In seriousness, I'd be willing to buy either. I like the idea of hording kit to make my ST compatible with the modern world when I finally have space to set the machine back up again!

Sounds like another 'maybe' to me :)

dukko from atariage:


Quote:

yes i would love one.it would make such a difference to my system pleeeeeeeaaaaaase finish it

Goochman from atariage again:


Quote:

I def would have interest as my ICD/FAST drive is dying.........

From atari.org:


Quote:

Author: BDAqua (07-159.075.popsite.net) Date:   04-13-2007 02:05 I'd trust Alison with my life, but could buy only maybe 2 or 3!

From atariage:

nyder:

Quote:

Since I don't have any sort of harddrive/mass storage connected to my st, I'd defiently like to get one if it's not too expensive.

I'll happily pay £20 for one!

wrote on 01.11.07 at 12:11:36:

I'll happily pay £20 for one!

I think it will be more expensive than that but the moment I get an ST/STE that will be my next purchase. In the long run it will have much better performance/price ratio than the current product.  At least according to what is known about it but I have no reason to doubt Aly.

Heavy, Christos, shall I put you for one each then?

I need to get an ST first ;) but yeah :)

ggn wrote on 09.11.07 at 19:22:00:

Heavy, Christos, shall I put you for one each then?

Yes please.  I understand it may be closer to £50/70 but I'd really like one even at that price.