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Post by Mayhem on Nov 19, 2013 14:05:15 GMT -5
Oh right, he had made some slim Spike's Circus? Must admit I never recall seeing those...
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Post by TrekMD on Nov 19, 2013 23:43:33 GMT -5
Oh right, he had made some slim Spike's Circus? Must admit I never recall seeing those... I did not know they existed either. |
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Post by madtronix on Nov 21, 2013 13:04:00 GMT -5
Hello everyone. Johannes/madtronix here. Wow a lot happened in the scene in the last 6 years since I disappeared! Yes I will serve the scene again. Very soon. Fixing the website actually is the most complicated step for me at the moment :-) Right now setting up everything again, so please wait sending me any product order requests. There should be enough stuff for the initial round, I won't take any preorders, just ship products in stock. Contact me though asap if you have repair/service/idea requests or if you want to develop games and need special hardware like development kits. Use the contact form at www.madtronix.com/en/contact.html. I know that in the last 6 years some people somehow managed to send me money and/or lost their 3D imager colour wheels, etc. All in all it might be ~10 people that i still owe some products to. And mayhem I know I still have precious stuff for you:-) I was actually hoping seeing you at eurocon, but now I'll send it to you:-) I was often told I should raise the prices of my products, and indeed I don't earn much with it if i pay taxes. On the other hand i never was into Vectrex for the money, I just love the console and want to enable as many as possible to enjoy the system. Some things changed in the least 6 years: I now live in a country with one of the highest tax rates in the world and the VAT in Sweden is 25% which means EU non-business customers will pay a bit more. Shipping is nearly prohibitively expensive from Sweden, but I have some ideas how to solve that. My idea was to get the initial orders out now for the old prices (+25% for EU non-business customers) and then do some calculations of what i need to do to break even. All in all I'm really really happy to see this scene seems to be even more active then 6 years ago! Some answers to some questions raised in this thread: -Star Sling, logo and Spikes Circus will be available. I made a deal with Vectorzoa, so he will get his share on the sales. I really love his games. Yet have to update him, since right after we made the deal I dropped out the scene for 6 years. -Spikes Circus actually uses 8k RAM. I developed this cartridge for Alex Nicholson since the calculations Spikes Circus and logo did needed far more than the 2k RAM used in Animaction. I can produce these boards very quick and still have some laying around, so if one of you feels inclined to develop new games with more RAM/ROM, contact me. I'm always happy to help with anything that makes this wonderful system live longer. The carts I have now have max 512k ROM and max 24k RAM. I'm motivated to develop other configurations aswell. -The idea with the slim cart editions was to supply the games as cheap as possible with no limited numbers while still having acceptable aesthetics. If we used the reproduction cases instead the games would cost 8 EUR more per game at least. Some slim cart pictures attached. I made the pictures today, the carts 6 years ago. While I'm here I could also answer whatever questions you have. For personal support/requests, please use the contact form on my website. Please allow me some time to catch up with what happened in the scene in the last 6 years:-) Thank you everyone!  I'm actually happy with the look of Spikes Circus. the bubbles in the resin could be less though. I just started with resin back then. The paint on Spikes Circus has very nice haptics.  I like the logo cart aswell, the typeface will be changed though;-)  I'm a bit unhappy with the simplistic look of StarSling cart. On the other hand it is a 4k game (Alex did this as a challenge) It was really difficult to come up with some slimcart designs for Vectorzoa and I'm not sure if i should continue this slimcart design or should switch to stickers, like Revival studios is using them for his slimcarts, I can only make a very limited number of the carts as they are now because i nearly ran out of silver/gold/white ink for the printer i specially bought for the slimcarts/overlays and it seems as the inks are not available anymore. |
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Post by Rapetou33 on Nov 21, 2013 13:59:51 GMT -5
It is Christmas before Christmas !!! French saying  Thank you Johannes ! Olivier |
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Post by 50tbrd on Nov 21, 2013 14:11:46 GMT -5
Very cool to hear from you and that Vectorzoa's games will be available again. I've wanted to play Star Sling ever since it first came out, thought it'd always be available, got out of the scene, came back and missed the boat on a ton of great stuff.
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Post by gliptitude on Nov 21, 2013 17:05:47 GMT -5
All of the slim carts look GREAT, especially Spikes Circus. I very much prefer the finish of these to those that have been covered with stickers instead. .. In fact IF you are still able to produce these (you said you will run out of ink?), I feel like it would be a waste to go the full cartridge shell rout at all.
.. That being said, and especially considering that you are struggling just to break even in this work, I don't see why you should ever mess with a cartridge shell again.
Aside from finishing them in resin, you could instead just sell them without ANY cosmetic finishing, as "ready to mount in your own cartridge shell". Others have done this and I'm sure most people would accept this from you.
Personally I really don't like the slim carts with stickers on them. I'd rather just have the same thing with no stickers on it, perhaps include a separate sticker to fit on one's own cart shell.
... I can't wait to play Spike's Circus! This is going to be awesome!
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Post by hcmffm on Nov 21, 2013 17:28:40 GMT -5
Welcome back, Johannes! :-)
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Post by 50tbrd on Nov 21, 2013 17:41:51 GMT -5
Somewhere along the lines, someone needs to start offer to sell empty cart cases for all these uncased PCB. I'm not against the sale of them but with everyone offering them without also offering the option to purchase the case too, everyone has a need for at least 2-3 for their collection.
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Post by TrekMD on Nov 21, 2013 17:58:35 GMT -5
Awesome news! It'll be fantastic to be able to get those games again!
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Post by darrin9999 on Nov 21, 2013 18:36:09 GMT -5
Welcome back! Been waiting for a 3D imager and all the games....
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Post by Mayhem on Nov 21, 2013 19:19:38 GMT -5
Well, someone put up a Madtronix 3D Imager on eBay last week, but it didn't sell...
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Post by VectorX on Nov 21, 2013 19:40:25 GMT -5
^What the hell's wrong with people?! (Not buying it, I mean.)
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Post by Mayhem on Nov 21, 2013 21:25:21 GMT -5
I thought the start price was pretty reasonable ($210 iirc)... maybe it will get relisted.
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Post by hcmffm on Nov 22, 2013 16:40:36 GMT -5
I thought the start price was pretty reasonable ($210 iirc)... maybe it will get relisted. The 3D imager was relisted. With the vision of a direct bought from the manufacturer (Johannes aka Madtronix) the 3D imager sold at ebay item for isn't interesting, anymore, I think. Also, a price of $260 is far too high. Now, back to Johannes' return... :-) |
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Post by 50tbrd on Nov 22, 2013 18:53:50 GMT -5
The original Imager listed for 59.99, close to one-fourth of price of the Vectrex System itself. Now, it goes for anywhere from 400 to 800 depending on condition and level of completeness. I think the prices for originals are pretty outrageous and personally, I wouldn't pay more than about 150 for a peripheral period but I can't say how much Madtronics units sold for originally.
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