Gamer's Cartridge : Temporarily (?) Out of Stock
This is to announce that Gamer's Cartridge are out of stock for an undefined period of time.
That may look sudden, but I was scheduling this transition for around one year ... and kept it confidential until now to avoid an eventual rush of orders, or people purchasing my cartridges just for stocking "in case of" or for speculation without actually playing with their Saturn.
The reason(s) why
But on the other hand, as expansion 1MB/4MB RAM isn't available and that Gamer's Cartridge are hand made by one dude during its free time, maybe customers were more in confidence in the red cart because it mass produced, or a bit cheaper, or more convenient because it's "all-in-one". Who knows.
Whatever it may be, it's stupid to continue Gamer's Cartridge manufacturing if I struggle to sell theses. Maybe aggressive marketing or promoting my projects here and there on social media would had made a difference, but that's clearly not the path I want for my projects : I don't do that for a living and don't want to influence potential customers just to increase my pocket momey.
If it interests someone then that's cool, but on the other case I won't force anybody to buy my homemade stuff and rather shall temporarily close the store and go on other projects.
Life-prolonging treatments for Gamer's Cartridge ?
There are some solutions to continue Gamer's Cartridge manufacturing a bit, but as the "life-prolonging" title suggest, theses are flawed and/or limited and I will explain you why.Supplying shells from another source ?
That may be a viable solution, but honestly I didn't examined it in depth : that's a significant amount of time to ask several places about my project, my needs, etc etc ... without any guarantee to get something at the end.
Well, I may think about this solution someday but right now I prefer to dedicate my free time to projects other than writing tons of emails
Supplying shells from wholesale manufacturer such as EMS ?
Big manufacturer have the advantage to (usually) be stable on the long term and to offer broken prices ... but the advantages stop here.
On the other side it requires a commitment on my side to buy in large quantities, hence to manufacture Gamer's Cartridge in large quantities, and finally to sell in large quantities.
This "large quantity" point is clearly not what I want for my project : for me, Saturn is just an hobby which I don't want to be a source of stress (what should I do with remaining stock of unsold carts, electronic parts and shells if by example Gamer's Cartridge would be "3rd party copied" and that all customers prefer to purchase that because it's $20 cheaper ?), and I consider this was a wise choice to do such kind "limited manufacturing" because at some point Gamer's Cartridge lost interest from public.
To give an idea of magnitude between my projects and mass produced ones, unit used for mass-produced things is probably (I don't know in details) around "large cardboard", or "palette". On my side, the until is "shoes box"
Cartridges without shells ?
That's a big no : if that's to then hear that the quality of my carts is shabby I prefer to leave here on a good impression.
Additionally, if that's to also hear that because of the lack of shell my cartridges have to be put on discount that's another NO too. Prices of my carts are decided after a long work of research and introspection () so I don't want to hear any kind of price reduction after that. If you want a cheap cartridge, the red "all-in-one" cart is all for you.
Providing shell from customer' space Action Replay ?
No thanks. I have better things to do than waiting for your spare Action Replay, to mount a Gamer's Cartride inside (which includes to drill and cut the shell etc) and then stick your favorite label on it
As indicated above, ideal quantity for my cartridge projects is "shoes box" : I prepare a batch of cartridges from a shoes box of parts to another shoes box of "ready to sell" carts. Doing individual manufacturing for only one user just fulfills the personal interest of that user but except that it completely counter-productive ...
Open Source ?
That's completely NO : open sourcing Gamer's Cartridge project would yield around $20 price cut on user side. On my side, it would yield to the disappearing of pocket money to challenge in more complex projects.
I don't have anything against open source, but I'm completely against the ones that beg open sourcing just for their personal own interest, i.e. saving more or less 20 bucks in the case of Gamer's Cartridge.
Maybe that's quick money saved for them, but on the other hand that's also innovation in new Saturn projects being destroyed : I certainly wouldn't had pushed Pseudo Saturn Kai development so far (for example around cheat codes and Rhea/Phoebe disc image selection support) if in the meanwhile of the development 3rd party manufacturers would had made profits from my hardware projects.
DIY Kit ?
That's more or less same as open source solution : it's just a simplistic solution to satisfy one's personal interest.
Additionally, it's a source of troubles in the case that DIY Gamer's Cartridge doesn't works : is it caused by electronic parts (= my responsibility) or soldering and assembly (= user's responsibility) ? In the case of "one man show project" as I'm doing, everything is simpler because I'm responsible of everything when a problem happens
3D Printed Shells ?
It's an interesting solution, but this requires to use a completely new manufacturing process for me, with all the related matters (verifying solidity, tweaking shape, selecting appropriate color and base materials etc) ... and all the unexpected problems too : from my own experience, there are high chances of being stuck into unexpected problems when challenging in something new
BTW, I do have some spare 3D shells, but at theses were a generous present to me from their creator theses are not for sale and consequently it's not worth asking if I could sell a Gamer's Cartridge with theses shells.
Official memory cartridge shells ?
Regrets about Gamer's Cartridge
This kind of farewell article traditionally features a "this point should had be done better etc", but I don't have any regrets around Gamer's Cartridge development !!!When releasing Gamer's Cartridge, I thought the project would last for half a year and then be cloned or overtaken by a more competitive (widely available/more features/cheaper : maximum two choices possible), but this project actually lasted for more than three years
This was an occasion to meet many people who then became good friends (more details in the "Thanks" sections below) and/or gave extensive help around Pseudo Saturn Kai development. Without them, the limits Pseudo Saturn Kai wouldn't had been pushed that far
Testimonies
Many project proudly show feedback from their happy customers, and now it's time to announce stock and production shortage, I realize something similar wasn't available for Gamer's Cartridge !As listing feedback from hapy customers is too mainstrean, let's show feedback from users who didn't purchased Gamer's Cartridge
"Thanks for your time"→ You're welcome, and thank you for teaching me this expression to decline something in a clever manner It will now take a place of choice in my library of useful English expressions.
"I see. I bought an USB Data Link instead."→ Well, that's better than not replying to my email after ordering a cartridge : at least I don't need to reserve this cartridge during several days for nothing
"Will you release DIY kits ?"→ NO! PCBs are publicly available, and appropriate MAX3000A CPLD can be found on ebay so that you can assemble everything by yourself.
CPLD firmware isn't available, but please have fun in re-implementing Gamer's Cartridge logic inside. I learned VHDL like that.
Thanks
- Darius, for providing my first modded Saturn on which I started homebrew development on
- Deunan, for providing the good ODEs. Those helped a lot during devlopment of Pseudo Saturn Kai.
- Dezaemon DB (IGK), for keeping Dezaemon community active during all theses years
- privateye for all the help around Pseudo Saturn Kai, Gamer's Cartridge and also for motivating me to make Pseudo Saturn Kai even better on every beta build :)
- Stac for numerous beta testing help during Gamer's Cartridge early development stage
- vbt, for all his contributions to Saturn homebrew community