Rebirth of IMSAI

From: Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list_at_lafleur.wfi-inc.com>
Date: Wed Mar 24 17:16:38 1999

On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, Joe wrote:

> At 09:28 AM 3/24/99 -0500, Tim wrote:
> >
> >A year or so ago I looked at what it would cost to make my "TIMSAI" IMSAI
> >clone into a commercial product. Street price, I calculated, would be about
> >$2000, and most of that was in the metalworking. There was only about $30
> >in semiconductors in the whole unit (and that included 256K SRAM and an
> >IDE/floppy controller).
>
> That's exactly why people don't build kits any more. The price so the
> individual parts is higher than the cost of the commercaily assembled
> finished product. You need to find a surplus case that you can use. That
> would save a lot of money. Ditto the power supply and as many other parts
> as possible.

I dunno. I had a friend who put out a commercial product (high-voltage
electrical test equipment) that needed a 2' by 1.5' by 8" or so aluminum
case, with drilled/cut machining on the front, rear, and bottom panels. He
had a professional machinist/welder build one for him as a prototype for
close to a thousand dollars, and then had a hundred of them made in Mexico
for $95 a piece...


Aaron
Received on Wed Mar 24 1999 - 17:16:38 GMT