Crowdfunding site Indiegogo has called time on a high-profile British project to create a retro handheld console.
[...] "Indiegogo asked for proof that we are ready to ship the product and requested that we send them a unit to their San Francisco office," added Dr David Levy, RCL's chairman
"We responded yesterday saying that we would sooner give a demonstration of a unit to their UK representative, and asking Indiegogo to request that he contact us to fix an appointment. Their reaction was this latest statement."
[...] The Vega+ campaign raised a total of £512,790 from more than 4,700 people on Indiegogo before the US firm blocked it from accepting more funds in March 2017.
[...] RCL has missed multiple deadlines over the past two years and given a variety of reasons for doing so, ranging from problems with the buttons of the Vega+ to disputes with former company directors - the details of which are contested.
The company had originally pledged to deliver the console in the summer of 2016.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @11:12AM
A load of boulder dash, this Dr Levy has run the gauntlet of a manic if minor campaign as if he were a football manager rather than a member of the elite. Perhaps he can super hang on with a deus ex machina great escape but should also consider going back to skool.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday June 11 2018, @11:17AM (4 children)
Other than T-Shirts with my original drawings [warplife.com] on them, I don't have a clue what to offer as crowdfunding swag.
I've been building out The Global Computer Employer Index [soggy.jobs] to demonstrate to journalists and to potential funders that it's not just vaporware. There are about ten cities that list more than fifty companies. So far I list about seventy countries.
I can think of various ways to monetize the site but I am quite determined never to part with any equity in it. This because I want its listings to remain free of charge - forever. Neither will I ever promote specific links - that is, no boldface for paying customers, or any other way to make their listings stand out.
Flow Hive [honeyflow.com] raised $12M on IndieGogo largely as a result of an australian local newspaper's report of their demo being picked up internationally. The father and son who invented it really did deserve that much money as they lived in desperate poverty for ten solid years as they tried and failed with a great many prototypes. At one point they were couch-surfing with relatives.
Twelve million might sound absurd but consider how many beekeepers there are. To keep a whole bunch of bees is a good way to earn a living because you can rent your hives to farmers when their crops are blooming.
But how many coders are looking for work? How many companies need coders?
And not just coders: I list hardware companies too. My Index is intended for every occupation that's employed by companies that at least conceivably could hire software or electrical engineers.
My first day at NedSpace [nedspace.com] I turned a branding consultant - a graphic artist - onto my Portland listings [soggy.jobs] as a source of local sales leads. He was totally stoked.
I also turned AC onto that same page; he told me it was "Awesome". Didn't you AC? Tell our Soylentil friends that I speak the truth!
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @02:02PM (1 child)
You commie bastard! Giving people things for free! How dare you undermine our great american way?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday June 11 2018, @03:10PM
RMS once pointed out to me that "Information doesn't want to be free. Information doesn't want to be anything."
He's always been quite pedantic about the importance of correct language.
So I replaced "info wants..." in an essay I wrote with "It's not because Information wants to be Free, but because one has a responsibility to create Free Information" as the tagline for an essay called "Why I'm Proud To Be A Dirty GNU Hippy".
Just now I discovered that essay isn't online anymore. I'll post it then reply with its link.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Monday June 11 2018, @04:22PM (1 child)
People also like Coffee Mugs and USB Drives.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday June 11 2018, @04:58PM
My older sister Jean sells stuff like mugs and t-shirts with her drawings on them through one of those print-on-demand swag services. I'll ask her which such service she recommends.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday June 11 2018, @02:23PM (6 children)
A proper clone might actually be nice, but this one looks hideously deformed, I think they got the wrong DNA in there somewhere.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by choose another one on Monday June 11 2018, @05:17PM (5 children)
The ZX Spectrum was a general purpose computer, but in reality every Spectrum owner I knew used it to play games, or to develop games (and every Spectrum developer I knew was writing games).
Console hardware format to play Spectrum games therefore kind of makes sense. Except for the fact that there are dozens of Spectrum emulators out there for every platform, and if you really want hardware you can buy the Vega console (from the same people) right now, from Amazon etc.
Actually, that's the thing I don't get - I can see there might be a market for a replica ZX Spectrum, I cannot see how there can be much of a market for a "new updated" replica ZX Spectrum (particularly when the original v1 replica is still on sale) - it can't be "faster" (but still the same speed as a Spectrum), it can't have more memory (but still exactly emulate a 16/48k Spectrum) it can't have better graphics (exactly the same as the Spectrum)... so what could it have, different colour buttons?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday June 11 2018, @06:16PM (3 children)
I don't know if you mean these things are impossible, or just that they clearly aren't what's being done here.
I can imagine it being done, in the abstract. It could be faster and have more memory with a 16-bit version of the architecture, allowing expanded memory and graphics capability and giving the ability to run multiple 8-bit programs via VM seamlessly.
But yeah, doesn't look like they're doing any of that. So I saw the headline and had to investigate, but afterwards I just go meh.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday June 11 2018, @07:51PM (2 children)
> I don't know if you mean these things are impossible, or just that they clearly aren't what's being done here.
What I meant was that it isn't possible for a V2.0 (or "+") replica to be faster than a v1.0 replica - each of them either replicates the speed of the original spectrum, or it's a poor replica.
This is actually a real issue - the games then were programmed to run as fast as the hardware would go, it was very very rare that there were enough spare cycles to wait for a timer sync. If you made a faster emulator the games would be mostly unplayable - this is also the reason why PCs in that era had "turbo" buttons added when they got faster.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday June 11 2018, @08:54PM
The turbo button is a good example: It allowed to run games at original speed, while still allowing the computer to run at a faster speed.
A more advanced interface might allow to give a speed factor, that is, you can play a game at original speed, at 1.5x speed (for the challenge, or because the original game was just unbearably slow), at half the speed (if you want to study the game mechanics in more detail, or simply to allow you to beat that game that always was too fast for your reaction times), or whatever other speed you want (as long as the hardware supports it).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday June 11 2018, @11:24PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 11 2018, @10:35PM
There were Spectrums with 128k RAM as well.