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Indiegogo Halted Retro Computer Campaign (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on BBC: Crowdfunding platform Indiegogo intervened to stop a handheld retro computer console campaign from acquiring further funding, the BBC has learned. The Spectrum ZX Vega+, backed by Sir Clive Sinclair, had achieved its original crowdfunding target. But then Indiegogo halted further fundraising because of delivery delays and a lack of communication to backers. The project's organizers had asked the BBC not to reveal the development. The BBC understands no consoles have been delivered to backers, despite a pledge last month that they would "ship after 20 Feb 2017." And the company behind the project -- Retro Computers Limited -- suggested these details might put its team at risk.
It's certainly not because of "delivery delays and a lack of communication to backers".
Delivery delays and lack of communication is completely normal for IGG projects, as are complete scams.
No sig today...
IIRC Sir Clive sold the ZX Spectrum rights to Amstrad. Alan Sugar is probably the one to blame.
No sig today...
Apparently, sometime in the last two years, some of the directors left the company and started suing the remaining board for various things causing some strife and chaos. I have their original product, the original Vega that plugs into the TV console. It works well, and I got it on sale so it wasn't horribly expensive. It got good reviews, and many were excited about this new handheld version coming out--then something happened. Support simply vanished: the user forum disappeared, never to return; emails to the staff were never read or returned; and the promised OS update never arrived. Meanwhile, they were still shipping plenty of the old Vegas, constantly promoting the Vega handheld, and updating their twitter feed. Despite all the problems, they assured everyone that everything was fine.... except the product was getting delayed and delayed and delayed. Something weird is up with them--it's like the company is only half alive.
Technically, at this point as long as they ship they have fulfilled their promise as it is after 20 Feb 2017. It could be a month from now or 2 years
If you want to look at it that way, they could deliver it five minutes before the heat death of the universe and they'd still technically have met their promise...
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Technically, at this point as long as they ship they have fulfilled their promise as it is after 20 Feb 2017. It could be a month from now or 2 years
If you want to look at it that way, they could deliver it five minutes before the heat death of the universe and they'd still technically have met their promise...
That was kind of my point. In my mind I read that statement along the lines of the Blizzard definition of soon
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Quite.
Which is why you should never trust any company making any claims with such weasel words. If they mention a deadline, the deadline should be phrased as the *latest* acceptable date - "Will shipped by xx/yy/zzzz". If they're talking performance, it should be the minimum acceptable performance.
Witness the vast majority of ISPs selling packages with performance "up to" aaaa Mb/s - good luck ever seeing those speeds, but since "speeds up to" includes everything down to zero, they're never in violation of the terms (and you know it's intentional scamming rather than technical limitations since if you downgrade to a package that offers the speeds you're actually getting, they immediately cut the speed to a similar fraction of the new "up to" speed)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Sometimes I feel like the comments are also generated by some bad A.I. that can't fridge blue also grass door if sky plastic.
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Us old-timers who grew up with Sinclair machines are shocked: late, under-performing and funky keys and you expected anything different?!
Every Sinclair machine has had a horrible keyboard: the ZX-80 and ZX-81 was diabolical; the Spectrum 16K / 48K awful; and the Spectrum+ & QL merely horrible.
Every single machine was late, buggy and idiosyncratic enough to make you wonder if Sir Clive simply should get a better dealer.
BUT they were cheap and relatively robust. The BASIC manuals were typically better than anything else available. There was lots of software and other people who owned them. As an introduction to computing, the Sinclair machines were wonderful. I credit my ZX-81 for being the launch-point for where I am today (ERP technical consultant).
Why the Spectrum?
It was cheap, and people already had familiarity with it's BASIC via the ZX-80 and ZX-81. Coming from those machines, the Spectrum represented a technicolor nirvana.
WTF is wrong with people who put money into Kickstarter, Indiegogo or whatever?
Surely the deal is clear enough. You put your money into a speculative venture. Development and/or manufacture of a thing that does not exist yet. It may come to fruition or it may not.
Why on Earth are they kicking like infants when it all fails?
Normally I would agree with you: sometimes a project burns through all the cash before getting a working product and then they go silent whilst they scrabble around trying to salvage something. However, they don't usually then have the money to burn on lawyers to try to keep the story under wraps. That does smell bad, and they deserve to get Streisanded all over the net for that, at least.