Change in EPROM pricing effective 01/01/18

[CPUWIZ]

It takes a "special type of person" who does not belong to a community or even contribute to it, to come in and stir up dung.

 

You better not be talking about me, I was just trying to find out what EPROM's he was talking about. But the grumpy attitude and bold text turned me away. I have thousands of EPROM's sitting around, of all kinds, and that is just what they will do.

[Omega-TI]

Not you.

[Shawn]

Not you.

 

If you are talking about me, I saw it was a current post the other day and noticed EPROM in the title so I was interested in reading. I didn't see it was specifically for the TI or in the TI section at first or I might have just ignored it. I was less than pleased to see a pile of lies when I opened the post and wasn't gonna just sit idle after reading such a pile of non-sense. You wanna drink that koolaid you go right ahead. I'll stay here in reality where all this bizarre justification of priced out lies is unacceptable behavior. Merry Chirstmas to you and yours. I've never had issue with you in the past and I don't want one now. If you ever find yourself looking to get away from what this guy has been overcharing for "20 years" so you can pay half or less of his unfounded prices like the rest of the world does, drop me a line, or don't.

[+InsaneMultitasker]

Seems to me that not everyone is/was aware that Atrax is not reselling blank EPROMs; he is providing a service. He has invested the time to burn and test, update the code, and handle requests for people who do not have the equipment or knowledge to do so. The original post doesn't call this out, so it is easy to see how this could be misconstrued.

[Omega-TI]

Seems to me that not everyone is/was aware that Atrax is not reselling blank EPROMs; he is providing a service. He has invested the time to burn and test, update the code, and handle requests for people who do not have the equipment or knowledge to do so. The original post doesn't call this out, so it is easy to see how this could be misconstrued.

 

I'm thinking this must be the case.

[+Lee Stewart]

 

You better not be talking about me, I was just trying to find out what EPROM's he was talking about. But the grumpy attitude and bold text turned me away. I have thousands of EPROM's sitting around, of all kinds, and that is just what they will do.

 

 

 

If you are talking about me, I saw it was a current post the other day and noticed EPROM in the title so I was interested in reading. I didn't see it was specifically for the TI or in the TI section at first or I might have just ignored it. I was less than pleased to see a pile of lies when I opened the post and wasn't gonna just sit idle after reading such a pile of non-sense. You wanna drink that koolaid you go right ahead. I'll stay here in reality where all this bizarre justification of priced out lies is unacceptable behavior. Merry Chirstmas to you and yours. I've never had issue with you in the past and I don't want one now. If you ever find yourself looking to get away from what this guy has been overcharing for "20 years" so you can pay half or less of his unfounded prices like the rest of the world does, drop me a line, or don't.

 

The problem here is obvious to all of us who are longtime friends and acquaintances of @atrax27407 and know what it is he does for this community (pointed out by @InsaneMultitasker a couple of posts back). He did not need to tell us because we are regular participants in the TI-99/4A sub-fora here and have willingly paid for his services without needing the assistance of any special drink. I would think it might have been obvious that initial, hasty conclusions should have been reconsidered when no regulars here thought @atrax27407’s announcement the least bit odd. We all would do well with more considered and considerate interaction.

 

...lee

[atrax27407]

I posted the original notice on this Forum because almost everyone who is a member here knows exactly what service I provide for the TI community (and have for many years). I burn replacements/upgrades for TI equipment. I never have sold blank EPROMs. It was posted in bold because I didn't want any of my regular customers to miss any part of the impending price increase. Everyone here (almost) on this forum is familiar with Hummingbird EPROMs. I have been at most of the TI Faires for years and met a good portion of the community.

 

When you figure the postage cost to ship a package via 1st class mail, the cost of the EPROM itself, the cost of packaging (envelope and plastic tubes, etc. ), and the documentation that I supply with most packages, I might make between $.50 and $1 on each chip order if I am lucky. Any profits that I might make go into chips for the new projects that are underway in the TI (not Atari) community. The materials that I use are all new. I don't use recycled EPROMs or pulls from some defunct piece of equipment. I also use US-sourced EPROMs since I have found them to be more reliable than chips sourced from outside the US. The fact is that, over the years, I have had no complaints about either my pricing or the quality of the product that I provide from anyone in the TI community.

 

The folks from outside our community need to cease and desist commenting on something that they know absolutely nothing about and go back to the Atari side of this website. I find their behavior irresponsible and reprehensible ( and even possibly libelous).

[CPUWIZ]

I have now figured out that he programs them, fine. But the attitude and bold text still wants me to sell you the same programmed EPROM's for half the price. Lucky I am always busy and too lazy to figure out where my TI is.

 

Why is it, that in the "special NON-ATARI" forums, there are always people with a bad attitude towards simple questions?

[Shawn]

Programmed or not, the comments still stand as is. I understood the whole time that the chips being sold where also programmed. As CPUWIZ noted above, half the price, same programming, still gonna make double your money all day long from now til the end of time. There is no chip shortage, there has been no worldwide price increase, if anything prices have come down over the last few years. These are all verifiable facts. I'm now done here in this thread of pure insanity. Don't eat the purple berries friends, they taste like burning.

[CPUWIZ]

The folks from outside our community need to cease and desist commenting on something that they know absolutely nothing about and go back to the Atari side of this website. I find their behavior irresponsible and reprehensible ( and even possibly libelous).

 

I will only say this one time, click on my username and look at the page you see. Then look up the word "respect" and use it.

[Omega-TI]

Happy Holidays to everyone and a positive New Year!

[+Ksarul]

Please, would everyone cool down some here? The original post wasn't intended to start a war--it was just a community service announcement. The community he serves knows what he does and whether or not to value that service. I know for a fact he isn't raking in the cash on this. Sending single chips in a bubble mailer and a length of IC tubing runs about $2.30 for postage to a US address (I do a lot of that type of mailing). When you add the cost of the chips, the cost of the mailer, the time it takes to burn and test the chip, assemble the package, and take it down to the post office, there isn't a lot of cash left here. Even less once it leaves the country--as postal rates have gone really nasty in the last year or so. The key here is that this is a service for the folks who either don't have ready access to an EPROM burner or those who just aren't interested in burning chips on their own. I have thousands of EPROMs here too--and I too try to make sure I buy them from a US supplier, preferably somewhere like Rochester Electronics (they have a wide selection of newly-manufactured and otherwise difficult to find chips) or one of the places that can certify the supply chain that the chip moved through from factory to me. Are these sources more expensive? Of course they are, but I have no complaints with the product received, unlike the 27C160s I purchased a while back from some of the Chinese sources. Only one chip in ten would program in 8-bit mode, as the Chinese sources only tested them in 16-bit mode. I ended up getting a large supply of good chips from Bulgaria, as they were the only non-Chinese source I tested that had fully functional chips for a good price (there are probably others, but I don't need any more of those, and the 60 bad chips I got from six different sources ended up as a cost of doing business, as they didn't arrive until long after the possibility of a PayPal refund had expired). One moves on and looks for better sources. I have had trouble finding a good source for 2532s (and I still need about 20 of them), but it isn't an immediate need yet, so maybe I'll find some before it becomes so.

 

As to outsiders dropping in, thanks for being here. We are often out on the periphery when it comes to goings-on on the rest of the site, but I do drop in and post on the other portions of the forum when I find a topic there that interests me.

[+acadiel]

Programmed or not, the comments still stand as is. I understood the whole time that the chips being sold where also programmed. As CPUWIZ noted above, half the price, same programming, still gonna make double your money all day long from now til the end of time. There is no chip shortage, there has been no worldwide price increase, if anything prices have come down over the last few years. These are all verifiable facts. I'm now done here in this thread of pure insanity. Don't eat the purple berries friends, they taste like burning.

I still find what he charges extremely reasonable for programming, testing, mailing, etc. For those who don't want to deal with the cheap Chinese eBay programmers or the $500+ industrial ones (I'm looking at you Elnec), it's a decent service from someone who is part of the TI community, someone who stands by his product, and someone who will work with you if they have issue with the chip.

 

I really find your comments stand-offish, "better than you", and otherwise inflammatory. Especially coming into a community where you don't know the ins and outs of who does what, who knows who, etc. I can almost guarantee with that type of attitude that none of the folks in here would want to purchase from you for those reasons, even if you are a dollar or two cheaper.

 

My .02, and you just earned a spot on my ignore list.

[Swim]

I've been getting items from atrax27407 for decades and also have depended on him for advice with editing .bin files and other needs for the TI/Geneve hobby. I do repairs/upgrades for the community and have my own programmers to duplicate fried EPROMs and other programmable logic during normal repair service but I often depend on atrax27407 for later .bin file versions than may already be resident on a particular device. Sometimes I just get EPROMs from atrax27407 because I just don't have time to do it all myself. Humming Bird service and price point can't be beat over the long hall in my never to be humble opinion.