RE: C128D

From: Bil Herd <bherd_at_mercury-cg.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 11:36:36 -0500
Message-ID: <4d630c0801a9bc355eab123e759d858d@mail.gmail.com>
Yes that was our idea as well that that be the only real differences.

One of the things that was harder than I expected but was made to look
easy by the engineers in the Tokyo office was we wanted the DB-25 Right
angle connector footprint for the D to also be stuffable as an internal
keyboard post header connector.  I think it was Mitsumi that supply the
header in a DB25 (staggered row) and I believe it cost us or Mitsumi a
not-insignificant amount to tool that connector as a custom.  I remember
them saying it wasn't on any centers/grid they had used before.  Nobody
complained, we were all there to make money, but I had no idea when we had
that "simple" idea to keep compatibility we were spawning a whole new
product line.

The single highest priced item of the whole C128 line (item not assembly)
was the cable for the C128D keyboard.  When I heard that one of the middle
managers had priced just the 25 wire cable  at $5.00USD (1984 dollars) I
kind of chastised him in the meeting and said I should be able to get it
under $1.00 .  A week later I went in to the meeting and said I had been
wrong, I couldn't get the price down below ($4.60 I think) which had
totally surprised me as I was so used to being able to dictate prices to
the vendors to some degree. (Jach Tramiel habits)  I took a day to see if
I could change the keyboard to some kind of shift register/serial just to
get out from under that crazy cable cost.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-cbm-hackers@musoftware.de
[mailto:owner-cbm-hackers@musoftware.de] On Behalf Of Julian Perry
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 11:11 PM
To: Bil Herd
Subject: Re: C128D

Hello Bil,

Wednesday, November 27, 2013, 3:07:23 PM, you wrote:

> Was a European C128D a standard main PCB with the A10 wire near the
> front of the PCB?

Yes. The only difference I can surmise between the 128 and 128D boards, is
the population of the connectors for the floppy drive controller on the
mainboard - on the straight 128 boards I've seen, there are just the
solder pads.

Julian


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-cbm-hackers@musoftware.de
> [mailto:owner-cbm-hackers@musoftware.de] On Behalf Of Jim Brain
> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2013 10:51 PM
> To: cbm-hackers@musoftware.de
> Subject: Re: C128D

> On 11/26/2013 9:45 PM, Steve Gray wrote:
>> Yup, it looks like the european c128d. It's a cool design. To me it
> seems to make more sense than a single pcb that combined computer and
> drive. I bet the plastic 128d would be easier to maintain/fix.
> For Bil's benefit:

> I concur.  The cost reduced 1571, with it's limited 6526 replacement
> and special drive ROM was not welcome.

> Jim

>        Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list

>        Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list



--
Best regards,
 Julian                            mailto:jp@digitaltapestries.com


       Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list

       Message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list
Received on 2013-11-27 17:00:06

Archive generated by hypermail 2.2.0.