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Subject: 
RE: Mindstorms on Slashdot
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:28:15 GMT
Original-From: 
Lawrence Whitman <{larry.whitman@wichita}stopspammers{.edu}>
Viewed: 
4946 times
  
I do agree with most of the comments about the blogging on slashdot,
(especially about costing a product by its components only) but...

There are two things no one has said that I want said (I wanted someone else
to say it though!)

1) At the last two Brickfest's TLG made innuendo's that there was a
Mindstorms 3.0 or something coming out soon (which I took to mean this
Christmas 2005, which is obviously wrong now). No new word on this? I looked
at LegoFan the other day just to see if there were any comments about it,
but that topic died several months ago as far as I can tell.

2) When you manufacture something for a long period of time, typically
either the price reduces after a while or a new version comes out. I would
think that the initial costs for the RCX have already been covered and they
could lower the price of the RCX. But, I guess that is unless you have a
captive market....

Larry W.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Boyes [mailto:bboyes@systronix.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 2:16 PM
> To: lego-robotics@crynwr.com
> Subject: Re: Mindstorms on Slashdot
> 
> At 11:57 AM 11/28/2005, Steve Hassenplug wrote:
> > > This link makes for interesting reading.
> > > http://www.techuser.net/lego.html Something doesn't gibe • but I can't say quite what.
> > 
> > It's a very funny story.  I really tried to read the whole • thing, but I can't.
> > I've spent too much time laughing.
> 
> Agreed. My favorite statement is this:
> 
> "The picture below shows an RCX brick along with a gaming
> device of Chinese make that incorporates components similar
> to the ones used in the RCX. The gaming device was purchased
> for approximately $1.83 from a mom-and-pop retail store, and
> it is missing only the IR communication and motor/sensor
> control circuitry... therefore, the original equipment
> manufacturer's cost of making the gaming device must be less
> than fifty cents."
> 
> I don't believe the RCX is made in China, using knock-off
> (clone) parts. It's amazing how inexpensive the China
> products can be. A lot of their ICs are illegal ripoffs,
> complete with fake OEM vendor markings, which don't meet the
> spec of the parts they are cloning.
> But, they are cheap!
> http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Jul/bch20050726031526.htm
> 
> The ThinkPads are now made by Lenovo in China, and they are
> all about $10 now, right?
> 
> If you add up the prices of the ICs in an RCX you get quite a
> different number from $1...
> 
> The slashdotter forgot one small item too: the per-unit cost of NRE.
> This is perhaps the reason the Pentium chips are not just the
> price of the raw silicon wafer used to make them.
> 
> Bruce
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------- WWW.SYSTRONIX.COM ----------
>    Real embedded Java and much more
> +1-801-534-1017  Salt Lake City, USA
> 
> 



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Mindstorms on Slashdot
 
(...) Agreed. My favorite statement is this: "The picture below shows an RCX brick along with a gaming device of Chinese make that incorporates components similar to the ones used in the RCX. The gaming device was purchased for approximately $1.83 (...) (21 years ago, 28-Nov-05, to lugnet.robotics)

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