Behr Bonz multicart in production and shipping!

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:49 am

Actually, what got me thinking about asking my question was this post:

eslapion wrote:The Megacart project is a great one.

How much time and money would you say has been invested so far in the 3 prototypes, including the programming of the menu system?

I would guess these 3 prototypes are worth a couple of thousands of dollars each. Am I right?

Certainly there was many hundreds of man-hours spent on the hardware and software.

That got me wondering about the financial viability of the Behr Bonz cart; because for $30, it's an excellent deal.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:59 pm

DigitalQuirk wrote:That got me wondering about the financial viability of the Behr Bonz cart; because for $30, it's an excellent deal.

Thank you.

I managed to provide this excellent deal by carefully choosing the parts used and the providers for these parts.

In all, the parts in the Behr Bonz cost 17$; 11$ for the board, 3$ for the EPROM and 2$ for all other discrete parts.

Designing the PCB cost around 80$ plus many hours of my time. It takes about 20 minutes to build a Behr Bonz cart but sometimes it can take from 15 minutes to multiple hours to troubleshoot them if they don't work at first try.

There is also the unnaccounted expense of driving all the way across the island of Montreal to get the boards from the fab as well as the time involved to promote, support and distribute them.

I know very few chinese people would do what I do for the money involved.

Added edit: I also forgot the cost of the prototype which is about 55$ in parts and 12 hours of work.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:54 am

10 units left!

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 5:31 pm

just got mine today - absolutely fantastic!! thanks again Francois, this cart is a GREAT achievement for the Vic-20 community.

some awesome games on here that i've never played, it'll take me a while to get through them all. (can't believe how horrible Defender is for the Vic though.

one of my favorite games for the 2600...)

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:53 pm

Thank you for your support.

yoyodyne · Post by **yoyodyne** » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:10 pm

Mine arrived today, and is completely awesome! Very nice, I'll
be playing games for a long, long time!

Thanks Eslapion!

hacky · Post by **hacky** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 6:55 am

I just send an Email/PM to you.
I hope you have a PAL card left.

Best regards Hacky

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 3:20 pm

5 units left!

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 3:22 pm

eslapion wrote:5 units left!

Another production run almost sold out. Going to do a third? I wonder how much interest there would be if you listed the Behr-Bonz on eBay. With a good description so people understood what it was you could probably shift quite a few. I reckon you could charge a wee bit more too. Might be worth considering.

jbuonacc · Post by **jbuonacc** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:11 pm

yeah, any plans for a 3rd run? also, is it possible for you to produce a 'custom' Behr-Bonz with programs selected by the buyer? can you only use cartridge ROM files with it? i ask mainly because there's a handful of games on there i'll probably never play again, but i'm sure there's a ton of other things that would be great on a simple cart like that. i'm also guessing there's a number of cartridges that aren't included due to space or whatnot?

either way, a great product for sure!

** anyone know if there's a way to access 'Bumper Bash' from the dual cart file on there?

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 4:45 am

jbuonacc wrote: ** anyone know if there's a way to access 'Bumper Bash' from the dual cart file on there?

Use Commodore key to toggle between games.

hacky · Post by **hacky** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:39 am

Thanks for the nice cartridge.

Is there any hidden function to reset a started game back to the main menu ?
Or do I have to add a kind of power switch to the cartridge to get that function ?

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 11:33 am

hacky wrote:Is there any hidden function to reset a started game back to the main menu ?

No, you need the next to come MegaCart for this function.

Or do I have to add a kind of power switch to the cartridge to get that function ?

You cannot add a power switch to the cartridge expansion port.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 12:57 pm

The Behr Bonz cart is now officially sold out.

There may be another batch in the future if there is enough demand.

phreakindee · Post by **phreakindee** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 4:20 pm

ARGH, didn't see this existed until yesterday, and just got my VIC-20 going... will be checking back to see if another run occurs, so count in one buyer