Introducing (and interest check) AirTalk: Wireless plug-and-play LocalTalk dongles

[cheesestraws]

I'd also like to express my intrest in getting one, if you have any unclaimed remaining.

Don't worry I'm not at the production stage yet—my first "productionish prototypes" are on the way at the moment. Keep an eye on this thread for development news, and I'll stick a post in the Trading Post when I'm happy with them and ready to sell some.

 

[max1zzz]

and now mostly I'm sitting here grumpily waiting for them to arrive...

I know that feeling!
I'm sitting here refreshing JLCPCB's order page to see if my order has shipped yet.....

 

[LaPorta]

We are talking about finished product? I guess it depends: will these be totally finished or assemble yourself as you go?

 

[cheesestraws]

We are talking about finished product? I guess it depends: will these be totally finished or assemble yourself as you go?

The thing will come fully assembled and ready to go. The question is whether it comes in a case or not or whether people would prefer to have a choice.

 

[LaPorta]

I personally enjoy a finished product, especially if the case has "fit and finish"; maybe a cool logo on it or something. That is just my preference.

 

[Johnnya101]

I would prefer a case I think.

If you go that far, how would the cases be made? It would be neat to do a platinum design with the lines and everything. Make it looks late 80s Apple.

 

[cheesestraws]

If you go that far, how would the cases be made? It would be neat to do a platinum design with the lines and everything. Make it looks late 80s Apple.

Unfortunately, they will almost certainly be prefabbed cases; I don't think the quantities I'm talking about would make custom manufacturing feasible. Perhaps 3D printing might help here but I know so little about that that I wouldn't know where to start...

Let me have a think about that.

 

[LaPorta]

an alternative: if you find a suitable case that would work out of the box, you could also offer to direct people to that if they really wanted one. Unless you are talking a lot of volume and can get a bulk buy, it probably wouldn't be cost-effective for you to buy them for the shipping etc...unless you have a local source.

 

[cheesestraws]

That's a good point also. Thanks for all the input. I'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself here: I should check that the prototypes work before worrying about cases, really.

 

[cheesestraws]

Well, look what arrived this morning:

 

[LaPorta]

Sweet…finally getting close to trying this thing out!

 

[cheesestraws]

aaand they mostly work! The only glitch is that they enter firmware download mode every time you power them up, instead of starting the application. That seems like it should be fairly straightforwardly fixable...

 

[KnobsNSwitches]

Exciting stuff!

 

[ronan]

Nice !

 

[rplacd]

Literally everyone's cheering you on, but I might as well add myself to the list... it's time for Bolo!

 

[cheesestraws]

The first handful of prototype boards will be going out to some testers this week!

 

[Johnnya101]

Somewhat related question: What type of cable is a Localtalk cable? I foresee an uptick of demand of original cables once this starts shipping, and the originals are not super common or cheap on ebay. Is there a modern equivalent?

 

[micheledipaola]

Fantastic, I would love to get one too!

 

[Scott Squires]

Localtalk cables are male-to-male 8 pin mini-DIN. They're still available new.

 

[cheesestraws]

What type of cable is a Localtalk cable

You can either use a standard Apple printer-type cable (8-pin male to 8-pin male mini-DIN with RX/TX swapped), which I think some people still make for some reason, or you can get a pair of LocalTalk boxes and a suitable cable, or a pair of PhoneNet boxes and a suitable cable. Anything you can use to connect two Macs over LocalTalk will work with this.

(Note this means that straight wired 8-pin cables won't work, but they won't work to connect two Macs either)

(Sorry, @Scott Squires, didn't mean to repeat you! that'll teach me not to read to the end before clicking 'reply'....)