For those detractors who’ve been complaining that new RISC OS kit is too expensive, Castle are now offering a DIY option which could save you several hundred pounds.
You purchase the motherboard, and a minimum of other parts from Castle and supply the rest yourself.
More details on Drobe.
The price isn’t going to attract new users, but could well be low enough to allow users of older machines to upgrade.
The good points are the lower price than a full system, and that it is quite likely people would already have components like memory and hard drives already.
The biggest problem would be finding out what components work well with the motherboard and OS.
Finding components that work well isn’t such a big problem. All you need is a nVidia GeForce MX PCI graphics card, RAM and a HDD.
The price is still quite high, but you must remember these boards are produced in very small numbers compared to PC’s. Still it does reduce the price by a significant margin and may be enough to encourage a few sales.
“All you need…”
Not exactly. The board is supplied with an nVidia card, because it’s slightly modified.
You will also certainly need a very specific USB card, because the system doesn’t have any PS/2 slots. Sourcing that from Castle is probably the easiest option.
As for everything else – go mad.
Actually, the kit comes with a list of tested and supported components, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
It would be nice if this list was available online, though.
Thanks Peter, I found the list after I’d posted. Apologies for not checking first 🙂
The site is not very well organised. The kit isn’t listed as a “product”, but from the products page you click on “prices”. The kit is listed there. Click on “customise”, then click on any “specification” button.