I'm a fan of all things 6502 related. So I thought..."what the heck...I'm going to buy me a Replica One!". I've wanted one for years but never could justify the expense.

So when I finally get a few bucks put away for a new toy, I learn that they don't seem to sell anything any more.

Anyone know what happened? I read on his website something about a "career change".

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Cat; the other white meat.

Probably none of us that wanted to buy their products could afford them. So the business wasn't viable. It's unfortunately just the way the times are.

Well, that's why didn't buy one in the past. I understand it was a hobby project but the fully assembled unit was pretty expensive. But the un-assembled kit wasn't too far off what other, similar projects cost these days.

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Cat; the other white meat.

Right, but, nobody has any money for things they don't need anymore.

Well, "need" is a relative term. I actually needed one because I want to tinker with the cassette interface for it.

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Cat; the other white meat.

I bought a '1, but I was probably one of the last ones to actually receive what I ordered - I had to email and ask where it was, but then he shipped it quickly (although I had moved to Japan by then, so Vince shipped it to there instead. All went well). After that it's been "nothing heard" from others who have ordered various items. I think there are still at least two customers waiting (for a very long time now). A pity, because I would have ordered the Superboard III if I had any trust in getting it. That notice on the front page is pretty recent, and I didn't get the impression that it was because of limited sales - quite the opposite. People stopped ordering when they noticed the issues reported by those who didn't get what they had ordered. Some of them did, later, but by then I'm sure everything had grinded to a halt. The big problem was that Vince simply disappeared from his own forum. And apparently nobody could get hold of any info about why.

Ah. That is a pitty. I wanted several of his kits. Including the Altair Micro and Micro KIM.

I have made a promise to myself years ago. That, if I ever create anything that become popular and I decide I can no longer support it (either by choice or otherwise), then I would release everything I have for it to the public domain. Shoot, I would probably do that anyway.

But at least it would allow others to pick up the torch.

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Cat; the other white meat.

If it's a health issue or family crisis, he may not have time to deal with the small business.

I'd agree that it's good to get source files and design files out there with a permissive license - preferably before the day you're unable to deal with such things. Although it can happen that someone will take your design and undercut you, I feel that shouldn't be seen as a huge obstacle. There can't be many who are genuinely making a living with 8-bit hobby productions.

I agree. But in this case, he mentioned a career change. Which, could be bad as in loosing a career. So, I wish him the best either way.

I was actually surprised to learn the guy who makes the RC2014 backplane (Z80) kits actually makes a living doing it. Not sure what qualifies as a "living" but according to him, it's his primary job.

At least the last time I talked to him.

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Cat; the other white meat.

I hope he's doing well, and that he finds a way to bring it back. I supposed all along that it was not a substantial source of income. Anyone planning a business of this kind will be disappointed unless they have a much better business ability and mentality than I do with my memory modules. I'm not a businessman. You have to be motivated by a love for the hobby, not expectations of making money. If your main source of income is elsewhere, and you can keep selling your product without losing money, you can keep going indefinitely (which I plan to do).

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

I worked with Vince Briel on the Superboard III and it was a pleasure and an honor. But I think even before that, he was kinda getting burned out on the retro computer replica idea. I can only speculate, but I think sales were going down and it was costing him a lot of time that he didn't have. He didn't show up at the Parallax Expo in 2012 (I was supposed to have a table next to him with my Propeddle project; fortunately the table on my other side was Joe Grand and I had a great time meeting him and hanging out with him and others). I met Vince at the Maker Faire in San Mateo that year and we chatted about our projects for a while. He had just finished the Altair project and he told me he was working on the Superboard (which I had never heard of at the time). He said he had considered making a PET replica but he found my Propeddle project and changed his mind. To me, the chat with Vince the highlight of the day. I was hoping to see him again at the Maker Faire in 2013 but he decided not to go.

I speculate that the Superboard III was one last project that he worked on to motivate himself to get back into the replica business. But I'm sure he didn't sell many of them because it was so expensive with the custom keyboard (I proposed to change the schematic to make it possible to make a low-cost version with a PS/2 keyboard, and to make it possible to use the keyboard as a terminal for other replicas, but he didn't want to do that). I don't know if that's actually the reason that he stopped showing up in the forums but I noticed that the Superboard III PCB wasn't as well designed as the previous projects, and he was clearly annoyed about how spammers kept vandalizing the forums so he changed the forum so you had to ask him personally to become a member. And of course that made the whole thing less attractive to potential customers too.

I own a MicroKim (with a 32K memory expansion board), a Pocketerm (with an acrylic enclosure), a Replica One Limited Edition (basically the Third Edition with a red PCB) and a Superboard III. They are all great replicas and it was a lot of fun to build each one of those and play with them. They inspired me to do my Propeddle and L-Star projects. I still visit the forums every now and again, but it's gotten really quiet in there. I would have liked to buy an Altair replica and I would have liked to buy the MicroKim expansion board some day, but I don't have much time and seeing that he was getting hard to reach even on his own forums, I decided to back away and advise others to do the same. It appears that several people sent him money and never got their order, but I'm sure they could get (or could have gotten) their money back from the Amazon store or their credit card company.

It's a shame that Briel Computers is just fading away and no-one knows why. I'm sure that I'm not the only one to whom Vince and his company were a great inspiration. I wish Vince all the best, no matter what his reasons are to give up the replica business (and Vince, if you're reading this and you're considering getting rid of the business, you know where to find me).

===Jac

Well said!

Yes, well said! If anyone could take up the torch it would be Jac.
The last project Vince started, after the S III, was to create an SBC version of the SWTPC 6809. That would have been interesting. Actually, with a reliable supply I would probably have ended up with all his kits sooner or later.

To be clear: My intention was never to compete with Briel Computers, or take any of his business away. That is still true. I'm not a business man, I'm an engineer with a hobby.

My projects are partially based on Vince's work and partially on work that Vince and I did together and partially on work that others have done for Vince's projects. But my projects are my hobby, not my job. I'm selling L-Star on Tindie for a small profit, but I still haven't broken even and I expect I'll never sell enough kits to make that happen. I just wanted to say: I hope Vince doesn't just let his business die a quiet death; if he still has old stock of PCB's or parts or whatever, I would wish that they would end up in good hands, and that Vince and his contributions would forever get the respect they deserve.

===Jac

As a KIM-Uno owner, the Micro Kim kit was looking attractive, much better display control. If the motivation to keep the store going is gone, I second opening up the design. OscarV has all the design files up in the website and still sells kits to those not willing to source all the parts by themselves.

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http://arduinoenigma.blogspot.com