Subject: ROM-Drive Project Update
From: Terence J. Boldt <apple2@cgocable.net>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Organization: http://www.remarq.com: The World's Usenet/Discussions Start Here
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999

For those of you following my hardware project, here is the
latest news:

The prototype on solderless breadboard has been running for
about 2 months now and it hasn't had a single failure.
ProDOS boots in just over 1 second.

Currently I have a 4Mb (512KB) EPROM in the test system.
The drive supports 8Mb (1MB) but I don't have any of those
chips (anyone know a place in the Toronto area to get
27C080 EPROM's in a DIP package?).  Anyway, that's a lot of
space for 8 bit software.  I have not tested the board on a
IIgs but it's not big enough to do much with GS/OS.

I finally ordered some PCB's today.  I should be getting 8
boards by early next week.  If they work, I will sell 6 of
them and keep 2 for myself.  I know that 5 or 6 people had
requested one many months ago (one almost a year ago) but I
lost all those emails.  If you are interested in purchasing
a bootable ROM-Drive card, please let me know.  If there is
sufficient interest (and these boards work), I might have
more made up.  Currently my cost is about $35 ~ $40 for the
board itself, $10 ~ $15 for the EPROM and about $5 for the
rest of the parts.  Of course if someone wants a ZIF
socket, that's another $25.  I would also sell a board
without the chips if someone wants a little fun assembling
it.  That makes my cost about $50 ~ $60.  This is a non-
profit hobby but I would like to recover some of the cost
of testing equipment used to build the prototype (and for
future projects).  I originally guessed $70 last November
and that's pretty close.  So...

Pricing for the first 6 (providing the boards work and
there are no changes in my cost):

$80 Canadian including shipping anywhere in Canada
$60 U.S. including shipping anywhere in the U.S.
$55 U.S. plus shipping for other countries

(includes a 27C040 EPROM programmed with your choice of
applications but no ZIF socket)

--
Terence J. Boldt
apple2@cgocable.net
http://www.cgocable.net/~apple2