On 3/6/07, Bob Axtell <engineer@neomailbox.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I have thought of this too, but I don't see the market anywhere near the
> > size you do.  If I remember right, Tony Nixon's pocket programmer was a
> > commercial failure.
> >
> Yes, because it came into being before ICSP came into vogue. The field
> update market has jumped
> a LONG way past those old days. Everything is smaller, everything needs
> constant updates nowadays.
> I think my estimates are low, frankly. Also, it wasn't very rugged. This
> needs to be VERY rugged, and
> packaged.



And for that we now have bootloaders which are more convenient and the
update can be done by the customer without extra hardware and without a
technician. This leaves your programmer to serve low volume projects where
the convenience of the bootloader does not justify the development cost to
implement it. Frankly, I think it's a neat idea but I carry around a ICD2
with my laptop so I wouldn't buy it. Also I'm developing a bootloader for my
application for customer updates.

So maybe there's a US$ 100k/year market for these things which works out at
a mere 500 units per year and that sounds pretty easy to sell. However I
can't see how you would reach that market without spending a significant
portion of that revenue in advertising. Google ads might do for 50
units/year, for the remaining 450 what would you do?
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist