The whole problem stems from do it yourself anything is pretty much dying, not just electronics and hobby stuff.
The problem on the electronics side is the comsumer stuff is so far and ahead of what you can do with hobby stuff. In the 70s or 80s doing anything with electronics was impressive because cosumer electronics was still in its infancy. It is just harder to convince people of the reward of blinking lights when you have a cell phone that plays music, videos and takes pictures, not to mention make calls anywhere you go. The gap has just become to great to try and convince someone the pay off is there.
Also there are just a lot more distractions now compared to then. You can get 100s of channels of TV and movies 24 hours a day, plus the endless world of the internet, and an endless suply of video games. Blinking lights, or watch that new movie on pay per view?
And from what I am hearing about Radio Shack (my own experience included) they made the absolute right desicion finacially. Pretty much everyone said the same thing "I don't buy the bulk of my parts at Radio Shack, but when I need that 50 cent part at the 11th hour, I can't find it". There is just no money in it.
And I keep hearing how programs today are of so poorly written where they can be optimized to be a lot faster, but why? I mean with 3 ghz computers why optimize code which you won't even see·the improvement·anyway?
With that said tho, electronics and programming are really the most enjoyable things I do. I spend more time doing that then I do watching TV or messing around on the internet because it is enjoyable and rewarding, if only to myself. I am sure this same discussion has taken place years ago too.
"Go to a grocery store and BUY food? Why back in my day we grew our own food and made our own meals. What a crock this generation is! Also some kid laughed at me for still growing my own food!"
In regards to whether it is worthwhile to know how to optimize when you have 3 GHz processors, the problem stems from programmers not understanding the big-O complexity of their algorithms. If you use an algorithm with exponential size/time complexity: O(n^2) where you could have used one that is merely linear: O(n), then as n gets very large, it doesn't matter how big you computer is, there will be a point where the resources needed grows faster than the size of your computers. Since as our computers get more advanced, we also deman more from them - more files, large data streams, more HDTV video resolution, etc., that n gets bigger all the time. In a nutshell, big-O complexity becomes more important, not less, as computers get more powerful, because the n gets bigger and makes big-O the dominant factor. Yet at the same time, programmers become increasingly disconnected from understanding this relationship as programming environment become more abstract.
That's why CP/M on my 2 MHz Z80 machine ran like greased lightning, but Windows on my 2 GHz P4 runs like molasses.
The Hydra needs to be marketed more. I've known about Parallax Basic stamp for ages and have several of their kits,·but·I never got real deep into it·because it felt very constrained by the Stamp. Years ago for a college class project where most students were just making an IBM PC expansion card that could blink some lights or spin a motor,·I bread boarded a complete 8088 (actually NEC V20) system including·writing my own boot roms so it could talk to a speech chip and 8255, so the capacity of a Stamp isn't quite enough to hold my interest.
I·learned about Hydra last weekend when·I happened to take a peek at Parallax website just to·see if anything new was happening. (Not all of the·Frye's are bothering to stock the Hydra, like the Lawrence Expressway store in Sunnyvale has none and tried to tell me they were a web only item, and the web guys don't have access to store inventories, so I had to call a few stores at random. I almost thought of making a drive to Rocklin to pick up a kit.)
Someone on the thread mentioned when we were young, there were more of us out there who were into doing things with transistors and tubes. When I was in high school 79-83 in Cincinnati,·I don't remember·any hardware geeks other than myself. And·I was definitely·the only hardware·geek in my grade school·trying to sketch out designs of how to build a calculator with NAND gates. (But then again, I·spent my recesses doing electrolysis to·make·pure hydrogen, and making my own flashlights out of paper towel tubes,·instead of playing kickball like everyone else.)·But so what! ·I did have Radio Shack, and I was lucky enough to live just blocks away from an electronics distributor (a mini Jameco)·where I could get free databooks from NEC and others. That was enough to get me hooked enough that·in my freshman year I'd walk 7 miles to school sometimes just to save up the 25 cents bus fare towards an 8080 and support chips. (In my senior year,·I donated my hopelessly out of date 8080 + clock chip·+ peripheral controller chip to·my high school computer lab.)·Perhaps there are fewer young·hardware geeks today because the places that exposed us to circuits aren't around anymore exposing the kids.· But the other thing is: Those days had plenty of distractions too, like the drama club, and the football team. Not everyone was going to be into hardware. But those of us who were inclined probably had an easier chance to get started.
Maybe we all have to become Ambassadors for things like the·Hydra. I'm going to take mine to work tommorrow and show it off to some friends there, especially a friend who was mentioning wanting to learn to program home automation equipment. We all gotta find the time to show off some of the cool things we're doing to our friends who know nothing about it. Viral growth with eventually happen.·If each of us could just find the one or two geeks in each set of kids going through the local high school, we'd be doing a great thing for the community by getting them started.· Ham's even have a name for it: It's called being an Elmer.
Here's a crazy idea for all of us: Find out where the local farmers market is. Find out if they have an area to sit down, especially like a picnic bench. Take your propeller, some breadboards, a portable display (I just bought a portable DVD player solely because it has AV in for my hydra), and spend some of your Hydra play time budget while sitting at the farmers market. Do the·playing with your Hydra that you would have normally done at home. People will notice you, so be friendly and have fun bragging about what you've done. You might not get much done, but·you'll find the latent interest. If no farmers market, maybe do this at a flea market.· Or the food court at the local mall. Do it in the after school hours if you can so the kids can notice what you're doing.
How about build an LED cape controlled by a Propeller?· Be a real life teletubbie using a Hydra to control the AV display on your stomach?· Sorry, I'm going off into the realm of performance art.....
If we want more people to share our hobby with, we gotta do our hobby where more people can see us doing it!
I think the biggest issue is just doing more to get the actual unit on display in more places.
Here's a few ideas I thought of over the past few days:
* Electronics Plus in San Rafael California. They are like the components section of an old radio shack, but on steroids. They've got lots of old stuff, usually at really inflated prices. But they are well known in Marin County as a place to go for components you can't find anywhere else. There have to be more stores like this around the country.
* Get the Hydra into the ham radio stores like Ham Radio Outlet (HRO).
* Get it advertised in all the magazines that are carried at Ham Radio Outlet: QST, Popular Communications, Monitoring Times
* Smaller PC shops might be willing to carry a unit. For example PC Plus in Novato California.
* Electronics Boutique, or EB Games. The Hydra isn't so expensive compared to other games.
* Create a curriculum targeted at high school age. Then do a mailing to high school science teachers about the Hydra. Offer a competition for high school students with some kind of prize.
* Advertising in home school magazines, perhaps exhibit at a home school expo. A lot of people home school to shield their kids from the latest razzle dazzle, and they're much more likely to be impressed by the simplicity of the do-it-yourself nature of Hydra. And they are always looking for good things for their kids to build that give good real world experience.
* Get the Hydra known to people who are into Burning Man, they're often the kinds of people that like to build things
* Put on a demo for ham radio clubs that shows the Hydra doing games, and also some sort of control of something physical
And, for the places that might be hesitant to risk inventory money on stocking even just one kit, have a cardboard display that looks cool that they could use. Perhaps even an empty product display box (like the·fake empty boxes they use in Costco)·they could put in their glass case, and promise them two day delivery of the kit. ·A multiple location store like HRO would probably be willing to risk having one or two real units in inventory if you could give them a display box to put in the glass cabinet at all 5 of their stores.
I regularly go to all of the above places, and if I'd seen the Hydra in any of them, it would have been a must have long ago, even if I had to drive all the way to Rocklin (2 hour drive for me) to get it.
Hey oldbitcollector: I was thinking of using the Propeller to be the brains for a VEX robotics kit, with the cream de la creme on top being a turret with precision angular positioning and a 200mw laser pen. Those can burn holes in some material. Next time blink a couple of those with your Propeller, you'll get more interest in what you're doing! [noparse];)[/noparse]
Hey Dennis: Check out the Jameco Grab Bags. $10 for 100 assortment of this, or $20 for a pound of LED's or whatever. I've got a lot of components I've squirreled away over the years, but I think I'll buy some of their grab bags just to round things out.... BTW, need more geeks close by?· Volunteer to show off your goodies at the local high school.·If you·hook just one or two kids·a year, you're doing a tremendous thing. You've already figured out the power of giving a well earned compliment, lots of kids are still looking for that despite all the "Daddy has enough money to buy me whatever xbox/cellphone/etc. i want"...· And on disconnect of the general population: The "new age" pot smoking crowd has some truly scary superstitions about health and reality. Our high science classes are failing badly. One example is an otherwise bright 20 something girl·I know who believes in 2012 there will be no more money and no·more eating because eating wastes resources (look up breatharians). And that drinking her own·... is healthy.·And the problem is not attention span:·She and her friends·spend countless hours memorizing some bizarre numeric nonsense·based on the Mayan calendar and base 60 arithmetic: "What your birthdate? Oh wow, you're a Galactic Helping hand, and I'm a Portal Enabler, together we're a Crystal Funnel, that's truly incredible, we can really visuallize the transformation·that will·happen·2012!"· Actually she's almost 30 now, I've known her 10+ years, and I am amazed at how much further down hill she goes on these things....
Sadly, the person who mentioned about getting trouble because of having some wires is only one way I can imagine problems for some of what I said. The other day an overstuffed bureacrat at the Social Security office hassled me because I was using my laptop to get some work done while waiting in their line. She felt they had a really good anti-terrorism rule against making any kind of recordings or photographs in the government offices, and that I should not be allowed to use my laptop because it might be able to do those things. I'm sure the rent a guard would have loved it if I'd showed up with a board with wirewrap sockets and some wire to work on a project.
Well that's a long post [noparse]:)[/noparse] First, I agree! The HYDRA should be marketed more! Paul bouchard is in charge of sales at Parallax and I will definitely forward him some of these stores like Electronics Plus. I already had EB, GameStop on my list, but parallax hasn't got thru to them yet. The other ideas are great, but takes a lot of time and footwork. I wrote the book purposely so it can be very easily converted into a curriculum by instructors, so the workd is already done on that.
I think it would be great for people to all show it at high school or college in their electronics or computer clubs, hitting 1000 stores at once with a 1 hour little demo by an enthusiastic user is a great way to get more out there. But, people have to take the initiative to do it. I do talks at high schools and colleges all the times as a guest speaker and show thinks like the hydra, or game dev techniques, whatever. I think that any computer club at high school or college would defintiely be able to put one to use for game stuff, and multicore processing and just because its cool and the only like it in a box as far as I know.
As far as the farmers market idea, I like the idea of it, but think a more appropriate venue is starbucks. I have actually taught embedded systems at a starbucks for a few sessions one on one an you definitely get a lot of people interested. Most of the people that hang out there are into tech and programming, so if nothing else its fun like you said to bring the laptop, hydra, and program there on the spot.
The most important thing is to do advertising where we get the most eyeballs. Right now the hydra is advertised off and on in circuit cellar and nuts and volts, plus I advertise in elektor, everyday practical electronics, google adwords, ms adwords, something awful and avrfreaks. And we take it shows all the time. I have shown it at the vintage computer festival, embedded systems con, the classic gaming con, and right now its at the northwestern classic gaming con. Shows are tricky since they are fairly expensive and 90% of the people are consumers not really hackers, so you might get an ROI, so its tough to go to all of them.
The thing about distribution is you want to get big chains with lots of stores 10-100 or better yet 1000+ and that's hard to find these days with hobby electronics. They are all mom and pop. Radio shack is the only quasi hobby electronics place left on earth and they are an anomaly for sure. And the amount of work to get a product in a store is quite a task. We only make dollars of profit a unit, so we don't really want to sell 5 at one store (we will of course), but·we really want a nice order of 100-1000 a month from a chain since word of mouth starts really kicking in.
This "electronics plus", I just looked up. I am going to personally give them a call and see if they are interested. But, its one store, and usually they will try 2-5 units and see how they sell. And if you are a good customer there definitely see if you can talk to the manager and tell him they are cool and he should stock them.
We need a big kill like GameStop or EB and I am personally going to work on this in another week or 2 and see if I can make something happen. But, I want to wait until the HALO 3 hype is slowed down.
Lastly, as far as I know every fry's should have HYDRA's, its up to them to put them where they want. But, I think if they aren't in a particular store than that might be a clerical error, since I know that the idea was to put them in every store. They only have 30ish stores. I will mention this to Paul as well since the lawrence expressway store is a key silicon valley store.
The most important thing we need is a really key chain to really get penetration, so given there are 2-7 degrees of seperation between anyone and someone you want to talk to. Someone on here probably knows someone that is a buyer at a chain that might be interested. If so, let them know about the HYDRA, they might just stock it!
In the meantime, we are going to just keep trying to get it out there more and more and add more expansion cards to it. The 512K memory card is doing well, I sell one to 50% of the hydra owners from my website, so that's good. So next I think we are going to do the SD card expansion card once I get some time.
So THIS is the threrad all the vintage Geeks have ended up in...
About that Onion article, frankly, I can't tell if it is satire or not...
(Everyone knows what 'The onion' is, right?)
Back when I started in computing(1984 or so), all kinds of stores suddenly got a 'computer section'...
In fact, one of the stores sold fishing equipment.
(Nets, lines, and was aimed at the professional fisherman, not the hobbyists)
Another sold photography equipment.
And usually, when they wanted to sell a computer to an 'adult customer', they'd ask the kids that were hanging out in the store and 'trying to decide which game to buy', to demonstrate how to use the machines.
Here in Norway, the best chain would probably be 'Clas Ohlsson'(Large Swedist chain with both online store and outlets all over Norway, Sweden and Finland. They even have a shelf with resistors, diodes and stuff. And all kinds of gadgets, of course... ). They're also set to 'invade' England... http://www.clasohlson.co.uk/StartPage/StartPageUK.aspx
The only store in Norway I'd advice against is 'Arngren'.
(If he ever asks to sell your product, delete the email, burn the fax, cancel your fax-line and get a new email addy)
Not only is he a reseller of the Moeller Sky-car(still doesn't have a marketable product) and other non-existing products, his 'components shop' is a link to a German site where he gets a referral bonus(stupid of him as German language is optional in Norwegian schools), he's never understood the concept of 'timely service' or even to make certain customers get the parts they order...
(Back when I was learning to program microcontrollers, the teacher told us that anyone who ordered parts for their project from him would flunk the class.)
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Don't visit my new website...
ELFA in Sweden also have a nice assortment of Parallax products...
They are mainly Mail order covering the Nordic countries but have a few stores in Sweden.
Looks like their resellers covers most of Europe and even Russia.
They have three Hydra kit in stock and most of the Parallax products...
When I lived in Stockholm 15 years ago I lived 5 minutes from their store but was not into electronics...
Now I live in San Antonio, TX and have 45 minutes to the closest store that sells components (no Parallax products, I already asked)...
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Living on the planet Earth might be expensive but it includes a free trip around the sun every year...
Experience level:
[noparse][[/noparse] ] Let's connect the motor to pin 1, it's a 6V motor so it should be fine.
[noparse][[/noparse] ] OK, I got my resistors hooked up with the LEDs.
[noparse][[/noparse]X] I got the Motor hooked up with the H-bridge and the 555 is supplying the PWM.
[noparse][[/noparse] ] Now, if I can only program the BOE-BOT to interface with he Flux Capacitor.
[noparse][[/noparse] ] I dream in SX28 assembler...
Yes, Elfa is nice...
(I but a lot of components there, including Parallax stuff), but...
This is a specialty electronics store you go to when you KNOW what you want.
Fry's, Wal-mart, Clas Ohlson and others are stores you browse, looking for something interesting.
What is needed is to get the product on shelves where people who doesn't already know about it can find it, be intrigued and bring it home!
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Don't visit my new website...
Comments
The problem on the electronics side is the comsumer stuff is so far and ahead of what you can do with hobby stuff. In the 70s or 80s doing anything with electronics was impressive because cosumer electronics was still in its infancy. It is just harder to convince people of the reward of blinking lights when you have a cell phone that plays music, videos and takes pictures, not to mention make calls anywhere you go. The gap has just become to great to try and convince someone the pay off is there.
Also there are just a lot more distractions now compared to then. You can get 100s of channels of TV and movies 24 hours a day, plus the endless world of the internet, and an endless suply of video games. Blinking lights, or watch that new movie on pay per view?
And from what I am hearing about Radio Shack (my own experience included) they made the absolute right desicion finacially. Pretty much everyone said the same thing "I don't buy the bulk of my parts at Radio Shack, but when I need that 50 cent part at the 11th hour, I can't find it". There is just no money in it.
And I keep hearing how programs today are of so poorly written where they can be optimized to be a lot faster, but why? I mean with 3 ghz computers why optimize code which you won't even see·the improvement·anyway?
With that said tho, electronics and programming are really the most enjoyable things I do. I spend more time doing that then I do watching TV or messing around on the internet because it is enjoyable and rewarding, if only to myself. I am sure this same discussion has taken place years ago too.
"Go to a grocery store and BUY food? Why back in my day we grew our own food and made our own meals. What a crock this generation is! Also some kid laughed at me for still growing my own food!"
That's why CP/M on my 2 MHz Z80 machine ran like greased lightning, but Windows on my 2 GHz P4 runs like molasses.
The Hydra needs to be marketed more. I've known about Parallax Basic stamp for ages and have several of their kits,·but·I never got real deep into it·because it felt very constrained by the Stamp. Years ago for a college class project where most students were just making an IBM PC expansion card that could blink some lights or spin a motor,·I bread boarded a complete 8088 (actually NEC V20) system including·writing my own boot roms so it could talk to a speech chip and 8255, so the capacity of a Stamp isn't quite enough to hold my interest.
I·learned about Hydra last weekend when·I happened to take a peek at Parallax website just to·see if anything new was happening. (Not all of the·Frye's are bothering to stock the Hydra, like the Lawrence Expressway store in Sunnyvale has none and tried to tell me they were a web only item, and the web guys don't have access to store inventories, so I had to call a few stores at random. I almost thought of making a drive to Rocklin to pick up a kit.)
Someone on the thread mentioned when we were young, there were more of us out there who were into doing things with transistors and tubes. When I was in high school 79-83 in Cincinnati,·I don't remember·any hardware geeks other than myself. And·I was definitely·the only hardware·geek in my grade school·trying to sketch out designs of how to build a calculator with NAND gates. (But then again, I·spent my recesses doing electrolysis to·make·pure hydrogen, and making my own flashlights out of paper towel tubes,·instead of playing kickball like everyone else.)·But so what! ·I did have Radio Shack, and I was lucky enough to live just blocks away from an electronics distributor (a mini Jameco)·where I could get free databooks from NEC and others. That was enough to get me hooked enough that·in my freshman year I'd walk 7 miles to school sometimes just to save up the 25 cents bus fare towards an 8080 and support chips. (In my senior year,·I donated my hopelessly out of date 8080 + clock chip·+ peripheral controller chip to·my high school computer lab.)·Perhaps there are fewer young·hardware geeks today because the places that exposed us to circuits aren't around anymore exposing the kids.· But the other thing is: Those days had plenty of distractions too, like the drama club, and the football team. Not everyone was going to be into hardware. But those of us who were inclined probably had an easier chance to get started.
Maybe we all have to become Ambassadors for things like the·Hydra. I'm going to take mine to work tommorrow and show it off to some friends there, especially a friend who was mentioning wanting to learn to program home automation equipment. We all gotta find the time to show off some of the cool things we're doing to our friends who know nothing about it. Viral growth with eventually happen.·If each of us could just find the one or two geeks in each set of kids going through the local high school, we'd be doing a great thing for the community by getting them started.· Ham's even have a name for it: It's called being an Elmer.
Here's a crazy idea for all of us: Find out where the local farmers market is. Find out if they have an area to sit down, especially like a picnic bench. Take your propeller, some breadboards, a portable display (I just bought a portable DVD player solely because it has AV in for my hydra), and spend some of your Hydra play time budget while sitting at the farmers market. Do the·playing with your Hydra that you would have normally done at home. People will notice you, so be friendly and have fun bragging about what you've done. You might not get much done, but·you'll find the latent interest. If no farmers market, maybe do this at a flea market.· Or the food court at the local mall. Do it in the after school hours if you can so the kids can notice what you're doing.
How about build an LED cape controlled by a Propeller?· Be a real life teletubbie using a Hydra to control the AV display on your stomach?· Sorry, I'm going off into the realm of performance art.....
If we want more people to share our hobby with, we gotta do our hobby where more people can see us doing it!
I think the biggest issue is just doing more to get the actual unit on display in more places.
Here's a few ideas I thought of over the past few days:
* Electronics Plus in San Rafael California. They are like the components section of an old radio shack, but on steroids. They've got lots of old stuff, usually at really inflated prices. But they are well known in Marin County as a place to go for components you can't find anywhere else. There have to be more stores like this around the country.
* Get the Hydra into the ham radio stores like Ham Radio Outlet (HRO).
* Get it advertised in all the magazines that are carried at Ham Radio Outlet: QST, Popular Communications, Monitoring Times
* Smaller PC shops might be willing to carry a unit. For example PC Plus in Novato California.
* Electronics Boutique, or EB Games. The Hydra isn't so expensive compared to other games.
* Create a curriculum targeted at high school age. Then do a mailing to high school science teachers about the Hydra. Offer a competition for high school students with some kind of prize.
* Advertising in home school magazines, perhaps exhibit at a home school expo. A lot of people home school to shield their kids from the latest razzle dazzle, and they're much more likely to be impressed by the simplicity of the do-it-yourself nature of Hydra. And they are always looking for good things for their kids to build that give good real world experience.
* Get the Hydra known to people who are into Burning Man, they're often the kinds of people that like to build things
* Put on a demo for ham radio clubs that shows the Hydra doing games, and also some sort of control of something physical
And, for the places that might be hesitant to risk inventory money on stocking even just one kit, have a cardboard display that looks cool that they could use. Perhaps even an empty product display box (like the·fake empty boxes they use in Costco)·they could put in their glass case, and promise them two day delivery of the kit. ·A multiple location store like HRO would probably be willing to risk having one or two real units in inventory if you could give them a display box to put in the glass cabinet at all 5 of their stores.
I regularly go to all of the above places, and if I'd seen the Hydra in any of them, it would have been a must have long ago, even if I had to drive all the way to Rocklin (2 hour drive for me) to get it.
Hey oldbitcollector: I was thinking of using the Propeller to be the brains for a VEX robotics kit, with the cream de la creme on top being a turret with precision angular positioning and a 200mw laser pen. Those can burn holes in some material. Next time blink a couple of those with your Propeller, you'll get more interest in what you're doing! [noparse];)[/noparse]
Hey Dennis: Check out the Jameco Grab Bags. $10 for 100 assortment of this, or $20 for a pound of LED's or whatever. I've got a lot of components I've squirreled away over the years, but I think I'll buy some of their grab bags just to round things out.... BTW, need more geeks close by?· Volunteer to show off your goodies at the local high school.·If you·hook just one or two kids·a year, you're doing a tremendous thing. You've already figured out the power of giving a well earned compliment, lots of kids are still looking for that despite all the "Daddy has enough money to buy me whatever xbox/cellphone/etc. i want"...· And on disconnect of the general population: The "new age" pot smoking crowd has some truly scary superstitions about health and reality. Our high science classes are failing badly. One example is an otherwise bright 20 something girl·I know who believes in 2012 there will be no more money and no·more eating because eating wastes resources (look up breatharians). And that drinking her own·... is healthy.·And the problem is not attention span:·She and her friends·spend countless hours memorizing some bizarre numeric nonsense·based on the Mayan calendar and base 60 arithmetic: "What your birthdate? Oh wow, you're a Galactic Helping hand, and I'm a Portal Enabler, together we're a Crystal Funnel, that's truly incredible, we can really visuallize the transformation·that will·happen·2012!"· Actually she's almost 30 now, I've known her 10+ years, and I am amazed at how much further down hill she goes on these things....
Sadly, the person who mentioned about getting trouble because of having some wires is only one way I can imagine problems for some of what I said. The other day an overstuffed bureacrat at the Social Security office hassled me because I was using my laptop to get some work done while waiting in their line. She felt they had a really good anti-terrorism rule against making any kind of recordings or photographs in the government offices, and that I should not be allowed to use my laptop because it might be able to do those things. I'm sure the rent a guard would have loved it if I'd showed up with a board with wirewrap sockets and some wire to work on a project.
- Garnet
·
I think it would be great for people to all show it at high school or college in their electronics or computer clubs, hitting 1000 stores at once with a 1 hour little demo by an enthusiastic user is a great way to get more out there. But, people have to take the initiative to do it. I do talks at high schools and colleges all the times as a guest speaker and show thinks like the hydra, or game dev techniques, whatever. I think that any computer club at high school or college would defintiely be able to put one to use for game stuff, and multicore processing and just because its cool and the only like it in a box as far as I know.
As far as the farmers market idea, I like the idea of it, but think a more appropriate venue is starbucks. I have actually taught embedded systems at a starbucks for a few sessions one on one an you definitely get a lot of people interested. Most of the people that hang out there are into tech and programming, so if nothing else its fun like you said to bring the laptop, hydra, and program there on the spot.
The most important thing is to do advertising where we get the most eyeballs. Right now the hydra is advertised off and on in circuit cellar and nuts and volts, plus I advertise in elektor, everyday practical electronics, google adwords, ms adwords, something awful and avrfreaks. And we take it shows all the time. I have shown it at the vintage computer festival, embedded systems con, the classic gaming con, and right now its at the northwestern classic gaming con. Shows are tricky since they are fairly expensive and 90% of the people are consumers not really hackers, so you might get an ROI, so its tough to go to all of them.
The thing about distribution is you want to get big chains with lots of stores 10-100 or better yet 1000+ and that's hard to find these days with hobby electronics. They are all mom and pop. Radio shack is the only quasi hobby electronics place left on earth and they are an anomaly for sure. And the amount of work to get a product in a store is quite a task. We only make dollars of profit a unit, so we don't really want to sell 5 at one store (we will of course), but·we really want a nice order of 100-1000 a month from a chain since word of mouth starts really kicking in.
This "electronics plus", I just looked up. I am going to personally give them a call and see if they are interested. But, its one store, and usually they will try 2-5 units and see how they sell. And if you are a good customer there definitely see if you can talk to the manager and tell him they are cool and he should stock them.
We need a big kill like GameStop or EB and I am personally going to work on this in another week or 2 and see if I can make something happen. But, I want to wait until the HALO 3 hype is slowed down.
Lastly, as far as I know every fry's should have HYDRA's, its up to them to put them where they want. But, I think if they aren't in a particular store than that might be a clerical error, since I know that the idea was to put them in every store. They only have 30ish stores. I will mention this to Paul as well since the lawrence expressway store is a key silicon valley store.
The most important thing we need is a really key chain to really get penetration, so given there are 2-7 degrees of seperation between anyone and someone you want to talk to. Someone on here probably knows someone that is a buyer at a chain that might be interested. If so, let them know about the HYDRA, they might just stock it!
In the meantime, we are going to just keep trying to get it out there more and more and add more expansion cards to it. The 512K memory card is doing well, I sell one to 50% of the hydra owners from my website, so that's good. So next I think we are going to do the SD card expansion card once I get some time.
Andre'
About that Onion article, frankly, I can't tell if it is satire or not...
(Everyone knows what 'The onion' is, right?)
Back when I started in computing(1984 or so), all kinds of stores suddenly got a 'computer section'...
In fact, one of the stores sold fishing equipment.
(Nets, lines, and was aimed at the professional fisherman, not the hobbyists)
Another sold photography equipment.
And usually, when they wanted to sell a computer to an 'adult customer', they'd ask the kids that were hanging out in the store and 'trying to decide which game to buy', to demonstrate how to use the machines.
Here in Norway, the best chain would probably be 'Clas Ohlsson'(Large Swedist chain with both online store and outlets all over Norway, Sweden and Finland. They even have a shelf with resistors, diodes and stuff. And all kinds of gadgets, of course... ). They're also set to 'invade' England...
http://www.clasohlson.co.uk/StartPage/StartPageUK.aspx
The only store in Norway I'd advice against is 'Arngren'.
(If he ever asks to sell your product, delete the email, burn the fax, cancel your fax-line and get a new email addy)
Not only is he a reseller of the Moeller Sky-car(still doesn't have a marketable product) and other non-existing products, his 'components shop' is a link to a German site where he gets a referral bonus(stupid of him as German language is optional in Norwegian schools), he's never understood the concept of 'timely service' or even to make certain customers get the parts they order...
(Back when I was learning to program microcontrollers, the teacher told us that anyone who ordered parts for their project from him would flunk the class.)
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Don't visit my new website...
They are mainly Mail order covering the Nordic countries but have a few stores in Sweden.
Looks like their resellers covers most of Europe and even Russia.
They have three Hydra kit in stock and most of the Parallax products...
When I lived in Stockholm 15 years ago I lived 5 minutes from their store but was not into electronics...
Now I live in San Antonio, TX and have 45 minutes to the closest store that sells components (no Parallax products, I already asked)...
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Living on the planet Earth might be expensive but it includes a free trip around the sun every year...
Experience level:
[noparse][[/noparse] ] Let's connect the motor to pin 1, it's a 6V motor so it should be fine.
[noparse][[/noparse] ] OK, I got my resistors hooked up with the LEDs.
[noparse][[/noparse]X] I got the Motor hooked up with the H-bridge and the 555 is supplying the PWM.
[noparse][[/noparse] ] Now, if I can only program the BOE-BOT to interface with he Flux Capacitor.
[noparse][[/noparse] ] I dream in SX28 assembler...
/Bamse
(I but a lot of components there, including Parallax stuff), but...
This is a specialty electronics store you go to when you KNOW what you want.
Fry's, Wal-mart, Clas Ohlson and others are stores you browse, looking for something interesting.
What is needed is to get the product on shelves where people who doesn't already know about it can find it, be intrigued and bring it home!
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Don't visit my new website...