Small proto boxes with LCD and buttons?

Hello Frank,

That web site doesn't work too well. Lots of broken links.

Yes, absolutely. The ideal situation would be a cheap pocket game that allows outsiders to program a "new game" and maybe connect a little hardware. But the main thing would be that it needs to be cloning-proof, IOW nobody should be able to simply copy it. With a uC you have that capability by blowing the JTAG fuse and maintaining strong password protection for the bootstrap loader.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Steve,

I saw that when I tried to find it back via Google. But these are high priced and non-graphic LCD. The one I saw did not have download capabilities but could display the depth profile of a dive on its LCD. It was much cheaper but you could not use it for the statistical analysis that many experienced divers are after.

That's dangerous for a company as young as that. Typically the cheap stuff sells like hot cakes and they couldn't stomach a loss leader in that market segment for long.

I have designed loss leaders myself but for corporations who made their core revenue with other products that generated a solid profit per unit. They only needed the loss leader accessories to augment the sales numbers of their mainstream products.

Not the pros but newcomers would certainly buy it. It's the same as with cars. Young people on a tight budget buy a little Honda and soup that up. Then when they are in their 40's and their career was somewhat successful they'll eye that new Corvette or Porsche.

Regards, Joerg

The cost difference is true for everything, not just electronics, food is more expensive in the US then anywhere else in the world, $4 for a box of cereal that contains 2 cents worth of corn and sugar(thats how they afford to put a watch in the box) , or a dollar for an apple here, a dollar a bushel over there....

Hello Spehro,

Probably even less at times. I have found an LCD watch with graphics display (it could make "faces") in a box of cereal. The whole box including cereal was large and under $4. Heck, the watch even came running with a fresh battery.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Spehro,

That is the reason why I am looking mostly at Asian suppliers. We had the same experience with discrete circuits that I designed. The parts cost we could achieve in China blew me away, along with any plans whatsoever to migrate it to a uC. Not a chance. TI claims on their site that MSP430 device pricing starts at 49c. Problem is, that device ain't there. It really starts at just under a Dollar and that is too much for most apps.

Same with domestic LCD suppliers. Simple 16*2 character versions around $5-$10. No chance. The problem with Asian suppliers is similar to Europeans in that they don't disclose their pricing easily. So it takes forever to get that data.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Frank,

From an LCD point of view, not really. 84*48 would be overkill (but would work, of course).

Thanks.

$2 would be ok at several thousand, especially with a COG controller.

Or one could just use the cell phone housing as is and cover the dial button area with something custom. That just leaves the battery holder issue since cell phone batteries are too expensive.

Until somebody finds a way to make it even cheaper ;-)

Regards, Joerg

?? The US has bargain-basement costs compared to a lot of developed places in the world. Cheap land, cheaper energy, business-friendly labor and environmental standards, large market with few internal barriers, etc.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:jEuFe.685$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...

Yes, but perhaps there are some contact email addresses on it - I didn't look much further. But I think you need a bit more than a tamagotchi.

For the LCD you could look at nokia LCD replacements, from China.

For instance, the 3310 nokia display, 84x48 pixels, with a serial driven controller on the glass, is perhaps good enough for your gadget. I bet you can buy these for $2 or less, if you buy 5000.

But something with an enclosure too... I don't know. Perhaps you could make an enclosure of lasercut plexiglass, made from a stack of 3 or 4 pieces glued together. Sounds like a nightmare, to be honest ;)

Cloning-proof is not needed - you're making it so cheap that nobody wants to clone it ;)

--
Thanks, Frank.
(remove \'q\' and \'invalid\' when replying by email)

"Frank Bemelman" schreef in bericht news:42e6b43f$0$58516$ snipped-for-privacy@dreader12.news.xs4all.nl...

I forgot, they seem to have bare nokia enclosures too, some of them might be suitable for a general gadget.

So pick up the phone and call them ;)

--
Thanks, Frank.
(remove \'q\' and \'invalid\' when replying by email)

Yes, unfortunately those factors have nothing to do with retail prices, the develped world pays the same price the US does for wheat and corn due to artifical price supports. If the cost of food at the farm dropped to zero, the effect on retail prices would be very little; distribution systems, taxes, government price support, limited production (paying farmers not to produce, the quota system), limited import quotas are what determine the retail price. Local grown sugar "cost" (real price cereal companies have to pay) here is four as high as the rest of the world due to old legacy government price support systems that are out of date (and imports are heavily restricted.) Same with peanut butter and a variety of other foods.

Compare on a square-foot basis, industrial land and homes. New York isn't even in the top ten of most expensive cities worldwide. London prices look about right if they were USD rather than pounds. Tokyo isn't as crazy as it used to be in relative terms, but it's still pretty expensive. A decent (but not palatial) residence for a young investment banker I know was costing his company $200K/year. To rent a small house in Hong Kong might run $10-20K USD/month. You'd have to compare a 500sq ft gross (maybe 400 sq ft net) microscopic apartment with a 3-bedroom luxury condo in the Los Angeles area to be in the same range.

Goods of international quality in stores are almost always cheaper in the US than elsewhere, often imported goods are even cheaper than their country of origin. Meat is not much cheaper in China than in the US, poor people just eat a lot less of it. And it's lower quality.

And income and corporate taxes are relatively low (perhaps not as low as the PR would have you believe when they are all added up, but still significantly lower than most industrialized countries).

That's California for ya. No 30-100% tax on cars either. Insurance in the US can be more expensive (especially liability) as is health care.

Labor regulations- very easy to get rid of people, low minimum wage compared to cost of living, fairly weak unions, lots of cheap labor pouring over the southern border for low-skill set work. Consumer protection laws are probably not all that different.

The US is about the size of Western Europe, so you have to compare state barriers vs. country barriers.

I think the state barriers are of more importance than the 10% extra market north of the 49th parallel.

Compare state barriers to country barriers in Europe. Yes, there are some licensing barriers, which is more than none, but they are relatively few and affect relatively little commerce.

Labor is the big difference. India has an infinite supply of miserably poor people to make lunch and young boys to deliver a cup of hot tea to you from a shop for a few rupees. They are in less supply in the US. This is not necessarily a bad thing in a developed country.

The change now is that whereas before China and India made paper fans and parasols for drinks, now they are doing grunt work in coding and making light industrial goods on a competitive basis. The cream of the crop of poor people are very smart, because they come from a huge pool with few options. This will take some adjustment, but I don't believe it will necessarily be all that painful. More painful for those who don't (or can't because of age and other factors) adapt. But for our children, and their children*, I don't see things being necessarily worse, any more than the move off of farms caused conditions to be worse. They are different, and better. I expect our relative wealth to decrease, but our absolute wealth to be maintained or increase.

*I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex.

-- Deep Thoughts, Jack Handy

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

--
"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Hello Spehro,

I beg to differ. The US is a wonderful country with great people but having lived in other countries and traveled to many more I think it's more like this:

Land and real estate is extremely expensive in the US, or about twice of what it is in Germany. Exceptions are maybe central areas (Arkansas etc.) where cost is comparable.

Cheap energy? I paid 4c/kWh in Germany. After moving to the US I was in for a rude awakening: 12c/kWh. Ouch. Ok, gas is cheaper here.

Biz friendly labor? Ahem.... certainly not in California.

Standards are a bit more lax here than, say, in Europe. So there I'd kind of agree.

Large market, too, but we do not have the free flowing trade among borders like Europe does down into the private sector. There it is a piece of cake to sell something in another country or buy something there. Always was. I can buy meds in Canada except that I don't need any. But I cannot buy a car there. Regulations pretty much prevent me from doing that.

Few internal barriers? Ahem, the state tax and sales tax system is rather archaic. A neighbor does accounting across states. It is certainly not fun at all. Then there are laws and regulations that nobody really needs such as licensing. Many states do not trust universities, some bureaucrat decides whether you can call yourself an engineer or not. Work in another state? Need a new licensee, from some other bureaucrats. And oh, plus a fee, of course.

I think Steve has a point. When a lunch in the US costs $6 and the same lunch costs 70c in India something is out of kilter. It will have to correct itself and that process is likely going to be somewhat painful.

Regards, Joerg

Hello Spehro,

Big cities isn't where young enterprises will start or settle. A couple of years ago a neighbor was able to rent a decent apartment in the Shanghai suburbs for $75 a month, utilities included.

The trend in the US is to move away from high cost cities and back to rural settings. Not a bad thing. This way SW guys are better able to compete with Indians.

I don't know. Whenever people come back from Asia their suitcases brim with custom made clothing at less than half the cost of a cheap off-the-rack version here. Then watches, electronic gadgets etc.

Ahm, take property taxes. An engineer in NY state was very miffed one day. They reassessed the neighborhood to milk them some more. Now they pay about $10,000 a year for a rather modest home versus $6,500 before he said. Ouch. Where on earth would he get that additional $3,500 from? To add insult to injury he'll probably end up in the AMT snare because of that and then has to cough up all that dough from his net income.

Health care cost is quite prohibitive. We pay about $5k a year for a modest package for two. When you get sick you will be socked with huge copays. So you can't get sick. If you do get really sick you probably will become a pariah via the medical database and never be able to secure a new health care plan. Use it and lose it.

Liability insurance? Depending on your field of work the number of underwriters that might take you is zilch. They consider you a higher risk than an oil tanker with an inebriated crew. Been there.

Not quite. Our workers comp rates are the highest and add a huge chunk to payroll costs. I know businesses who either haven't been started or haven't hired anyone because of that. A roofer told me he had to lay off all his staff because of it. Lots of abuse has been reported yet unions fiercely defend those "rights". I have lived in The Netherlands and AFAIK it's still the same there: For a potential employer workers comp costs do not exist. It used to be a tax'em - spend it country which is why I left. That changed and now biz is booming pretty good there.

What high biz costs like this do: An engineer has a great idea. Then he realizes that he'd really need at least some local well-educated staff to do it. Instantly he dismisses the thought and moves on to the usual grunt work where he doesn't need employees.

I found country barriers to be not an issue there. When I ordered stuff from the UK or other countries it wasn't a big deal. Businesses are VAT neutral so even that was a breeze to handle in book keeping. My sales tax reporting was a mere press of a button on the PC, print two copies and send one off. 10 minutes tops, with coffee. Now I believe it's electronic. Talking to a neighbor who has a store that can be an entirely hair-pulling matter here.

Same thing. Buying a car from another state can cause a bloody nose when you try to register it and they say that it doesn't have certification that it complies with this or that regulation. You may end up with a car you aren't allowed to drive.

That was just one example. But in all fairness, other areas of the world are also setting up regs that have zero (or rather a negative) benefit for the public. ROHS is just one example.

True. And you can escape such costs here by making your own lunch.

I don't see it negative either. But in order to make the new world work many of our liberal politicians will have to come off their high seats and realize that tax revenues will inevitably shrink and lots of pork must be cut. In California they haven't learned that yet.

I believe we will see a continued move back to lower cost areas which is probably a good thing. Children need to be taught to remain flexible and not too attached to one region, or one country for that matter.

ROFL!

Regards, Joerg

Hello Zak,

That can be avoided by checking the type of batteries before purchase of the widget. If it ain't something normal like a V377 I ain't gonna buy it. If the manual doesn't say and the store employee doesn't want to open it I ain't gonna buy it either.

Regards, Joerg

Actually there is a god flow of button batteries now. 6 types of 4 each alkaline on a blister card for 1 euro retail, or 5 lithium buttons.

Much better than the 'how much can we charge you to get your expensive widget working again' prices we had before.

Thomas