CHIP - The World's First Nine Dollar Computer

[thatgui]

Should I use that as a proper training?

:mellow:

 

[WizardStan]

I thought the advertising and awareness raising was a big selling point of using Kickstarter. Why would it bother you at all? If Kickstarter was only for collecting money without letting others know about your project there are better options.

Oh, don't get me wrong, that is a major selling point of using kickstarter. You need money, you put your product on kickstarter, you get a lot of exposure and enough to make your product and everyone is happy. In theory, anyway.But that's what I mean, it's *A* reason to use Kickstarter. Kickstarter is (or was) intended as a means of raising capital for your idea, that is *the* reason to use kickstarter.

If I understand what this article has discovered, they didn't need to raise the capital, and in fact are actually taking a loss on this run just to get the word out: they are using Kickstarter *entirely* for exposure. This is bad because it creates an unfair standard (it doesn't matter what happens after this campaign, if someone else has an idea for a cheap computer it will be compared against the $9 CHIP), and it also takes away exposure from other products that really need the revenue, because believe it or not "interest" is a finite resource.

Long ago I got caught by that, so now I always check shipping costs for anything I buy online, not just ebay auctions

Buy-it-now, sort by price+shipping, always. Auctions are a joke I don't have time for anymore.

 

[rygD]

Actually, I think it was buy it now where I screwed up.  I do auctions because BIN prices are usually too high, so I bid what I am willing to pay based on the item and condition and leave it at that.  I either get it or don't.  Takes only a little more time than BIN, same typical ebay risks, and I pay less.  It is a bit like the best offer sales in that respect.  If BIN listings didn't have prices that were a joke most of the time I might do them more.

Currently I have a bunch of BIN listings up that include "or best offer" and, not surprisingly, they are also the ones that are closer to the actual selling price of the item I want.  If the other sellers dropped their price by about $5 (to 30-35 instead of 40 to around 500, yes $500 with 2 zeros, it is for an N64 controller...not sure why a collector would pay that to keep it in a box instead of looking at it and using it) they would probably sell.  This one usually sells for around $20-30, with a few for a bit more.  Since I will probably need to repair or replace the joystick I will just go cheap.

As for taking a loss on a product sold to early adopters, I thought this was also common now.  I do think it is pretty messed up to do it on Kickstarter intentionally, but I see no reason to think badly of those selling things more after using Kickstarter to get the money needed initially.  Not everyone is trying to do things the wrong way (playing Kickstarter, lying to customers about the actual price of their product and claiming it is shipping cost, trying to eliminate/reduce competition by getting headlines and attention over a "$9 computer" when that was never the case), and it makes sense to give risk takers that helped with money a discount.

Note to EvilDragon: The first batch or 100 or so Pyras should be sold at half the production cost, like the CHIP people did.  Just don't try to play all the bad games they did.

 

[Binky]

I wonder if you could sell a prototype/test batch for more that the normal prouction vaule?

i.e. produce 50 mainboards to make sure the manufacturing process works (and to find out if/where the design needs to be tweaked) and then sell them as "Super Limited Edition Pre-release First-ever-made Exclusive Prototypes" for £800 each.

 

[PowerGod]

for £800 each.

WTF !! O_O

 

[rygD]

I wonder if you could sell a prototype/test batch for more that the normal prouction vaule?

i.e. produce 50 mainboards to make sure the manufacturing process works (and to find out if/where the design needs to be tweaked) and then sell them as "Super Limited Edition Pre-release First-ever-made Exclusive Prototypes" for £800 each.

In equally limited edition optional clear cases.  I have seen much worse ideas that made a lot of money.

 

[fusion_power]

Well, my first Kickstarter will start in a few weeks - the RetroPi. Should I use that as a proper training?

Good question. What does the book "Kickstarter for Dummies" suggest? ...if there is even such a book of course.

 

[Nintendo]

I haven't read it yet though.

 

[fusion_power]

Wow, there are books for just everything, right? XD

 

[Exophase]

I'm pretty sure almost 50% of KS campaigns are more done because of the advertising effect than due only the need of money. And this $9 trick was actualy pretty clever because  alot of news-sites have a bite taken. Hm, How about announcing the Pyra for $99 first?

Not necessarily advertising but proving there's a demand for the product. Just because you have the money or can get it in some other way doesn't mean you shouldn't mitigate the risk of losing that money. But in cases where they do have the money they should at least be willing to personally cover the expense of full refunds if the project fails.

This is a lot worse than using KS to gauge interest or even as advertising. They were selling a product at a loss in order to gain market share before switching the price, which may be illegal. And they're misleading their customers into believing that they aren't doing this. Many of the KS customers will base their purchase decision on the belief that they're spending the real price for the product, because they're hoping for the product to be popular after the KS in order for a productive community to form. The price is what sets this product apart from many others, if it really ends up being $39 (I doubt it'll be that high though) then its market potential will shrivel.

This is also incredibly stupid because they were selling a couple $19 bundles without limits. While they did sell the $9 ones with 5000 limits, I doubt the $19 ones weren't also sold at a loss. So they were taking on debt with an unknown, potentially very high upper bound.

Oh, and apparently they said they're going to resume taking preorders for the CHIP at $9:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer/posts/1255110

"Also, to clear up a little confusion: when preorders do open up, thanks to your support and encouragement right now, C.H.I.P. will still be $9.

Who knows how deep they're willing to go with this. Maybe they're confident that profitable peripheral sales will be enough to exceed the losses. We'll see.

 

[Chip]

I know this thread is almost a year old, but it's probably worth bringing it up again as they've shipped the kickstarter CHIPs, and are about to start shipping the accessories (including pocketchip) to KS backers. Post-KS CHIP/accessory orders will ship next month (still $9).

The pocketchip will now come with a fully licensed version of the "fantasy console" PICO-8. This gives the platform a pretty sizable library of indie 8-bit style games and game-making tools to play with.

Shipping has been sorted (for most countries, at least). Their web store is quoting me ~$6.50 shipping to the US for 1 CHIP, and $16 for 10 of them. Shipping to Germany was even cheaper at $6.22 for 1 CHIP. That's not spectacular, but at least it's reasonable. It's cheaper than shipping an RPi from Element14 ($7.87).

There is a web-flasher app that allows you to flash the OS over wifi from a chrome browser.

 

[erico]

That is an excellent idea, but I feel the latest chip to be very ugly but worst as not a portable thing, I´d prefer a better case format.
But a pico-8 real handheld is really cool!

 

[hitbyambulance]

the news that PICO-8 is going to be available for this made me break down and buy one.

 

[Chip]

When my pocketchip arrives, my first order of business will be to install dosbox and win 3.1. This should be roughly equivilent in speed and capability to my very first computer (486DLC40). I'm going to make 14-year-old-me so damn jealous playing the same games on a $50 handheld that I once needed a big hulking $1200 beige box to play.

 

[___]

Gah credit card only payment... too bad. Now I need to reactivate my wirecard account. I just read up on the PICO-8 thing and I want some CHIPs now!!! Will buy several so I can get my cousins into lua scripting!

 

[Klumpen]

PI3 and the incoming Pyra suddenly make this incredibly uninteresting.
It's still a good thing they make some handheld since they may be interested in working for ED's future handheld empire.

 

[Chip]

You can't really compare a pocketchip to a pyra. It's only a fraction as powerful (single 1GHz core), has only 512mb RAM, and only 4GB flash storage (with no SD slot). The display is cheap and low-res, the battery is small, it has no proper gaming controls, and the fit and finish is essentially non-existent. It's basically a hackable tool/toy. They even break out the GPIO and serial pins to solder holes on the top of the device, with the expectation that people will use it as a controller/interface for projects. And at 1/12th the price of a pyra, it's cheap enough to be an impusle buy just to fiddle with the hardware and/or PICO-8.

 

[directive0]

I'm super interested in the chip if only for that sweet pocket enclosure they've made. Its tacky, but as some probably have figured I'm into the clear tacky look. There are many times I have wished my RPi had a similair "all-in-one" enclosure to do some simple setup.

Sadly I don't think anyone has received one yet, so it's difficult to know if they are actually any good.

 

[torpor]

Avidly awaiting mine to arrive ..

 

[rygD]

How much does a $9 computer currently cost?