ok. way back in january, i deffered (#1557) due to lack of fundage. i also stopped reading the board for a while and forgot about the empeg. now i am back and extremely excited about the mark 2. so...

i missed all the announcements about production dates and stuff like that. if i deffered, who am i behind now? what is the approximate shipping date for the mark 2. i know that the empeg guys can't say anything definite, but just wondering what the current outlook is. rob did say something to me in an email about me coming up for purchase in early july. does this sound right for someone that defered with my reg. number?

hoping i am not being annoying.
jeremy

oh, i wish i wish i had an empeg...

The people who actually own a Mark 1 empeg will have first shot at the players. There are supposed to be 70 finished players in existence, and there are approximately 300 Mark 1 owners. I suspect that the first 70 will go to people at empeg, be used for demo purposes, and a few sold to Mark 1 owners.

I believe that the current estimate for the first large batch of players (approx. 1000) is now late July. This batch will finish the Mark 1 owners, should get through the deferred orders, and, if there are any left, will start to attack the queue starting at #6500-ish.

That's my current understanding of the situation. Let me know if I'm off. :)

Alex

Forty players have been allocated to ship to clients late this week. We have a little more work to do on the new ecommerce back end, and then we'll take firm orders (probably Tuesday or Wednesday). There will be certain conditions attached to these first forty players, however:

* They are all blue, although a free colour change will be available later

* The tuner isn't ready, it will ship as soon as we get some (could be a month or two)

* These players will ship with Beta software. Subsequent Mark 2's will ship with a consumer release, and of course the initial players are fully upgradable. Some new Mark 2 functionality may be incomplete at first.

Full details will be emailed in the next day or so to those who have expressed an interest in taking up the client upgrade offer.

Rob

They are all blue, although a free colour change will be available later

If someone is invited to buy one of these first-40 blue ones, and they decide to wait (and not have to bother shipping it back later to get the different display), this doesn't hurt their place in the queue, does it?


- -- ----- -- -
Queue # 5723

No, of course there will be no problem with passing up one of these players. You would be offered a player from the consumer batch next month.

By the way, the display colour change is a user upgrade.

Rob

By the way, the display colour change is a user upgrade.

Does this mean it easier to change than on the MkI? I know it's pretty easy (if you're careful), but there may be some clients not comfortable with computer "innards".


_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

Rob,

I have been trying to get ahold of you. I am #427, zimmerman@simpledialup.com, what I need to find out is if you have sent invites yet? I can't find myself in the database. We had this same problem back in June/July last year when I ordered the MK.I I had to have you e-mail me because something happened to the database. Could you please check this, and make sure that I am in line to get one of the first upgrades? I am ready to move on to the MK.II

Thanks,

Chris

Proud owner of MK.I 00028



Chris Zimmerman
Simple Dialup - Owner
zimmerman@simpledialup.com
SERIAL - 00028 / ID - 427

Does this mean it easier to change than on the MkI? I know it's pretty easy (if you're careful), but there may be some clients not comfortable with computer "innards".

Fortunately, the face color upgrade has nothing to do with the innards. It's just the piece of clear plastic on the front. Unscrew, swap, screw back on.

___________
Tony Fabris

It's not a complex process - undo four cap head bolts (we may even supply the hex key), pull off the rotary knob, swap the panel and reassemble.

We'll do it for you, but it'll cost you shipping.

Rob

I guess that makes sense, since the screws ARE exposed on the front. I was thinking we'd have to remove the whole face panel, VFD and all.
Thanks again!

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."

So where does the plastic facia fit to then? I thought that it was attached to the colour face (although why I thought that is another matter.

Are the bolts exposed out through the plastic?

Does this mean that I can have the option of not having the plastic facia?

Cheers,

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

So where does the plastic facia fit to then? I thought that it was attached to the colour face (although why I thought that is another matter).

The bolts go through both the plastic fascia and the clear-plastic face. The two pieces of facia (black part and clear part) interlock together and are both held in place by the bolts. The threads for the bolts are mounted through the display board onto the frame.

Are the bolts exposed out through the plastic?

Yes, the hex heads are visible, and they are clearly seen in the renderings and photos at the web site.

Does this mean that I can have the option of not having the plastic facia?

I assume you mean making it look like a MK1, with a smooth flat clear/colored plastic part. Well, not really. I mean you could probably take just the black bit off, but the underlying clear plastic part isn't plain and flat any more so it would look goofy. I saw the SLA model in San Jose, and the clear part of the face is sculpted to interlock with the black part. Plus the sculpted handle would look goofy.

If you had the parts of a MK1 still, you could probably drill a hole for the knob and fit that to the front of the MK2. It would still look a little odd, though.

No, wait, on second thought, you couldn't even do that. The clear/colored plastic part has some kind of special IR filter applied to the inside of it just over the IR sensor. This is necessary so that sunlight doesn't screw up the IR signals. On the MK2, the IR sensors are in a different place so you'd lose that filter if you did that.

___________
Tony Fabris

Yes, the hex heads are visible, and they are clearly seen in the renderings and photos at the web site.

Apologies, I was running the computer at 640x480@256colours, so the images were wacky! (try it and see what I mean).

I think that the odd looking handle is a killer here. Pity, since I really liked the 'old' style look, but we'll see.

Cheers,

Paul.

Paul Haigh, 6GB, Blue
Reg: 4120 - Serial 00254

About the IR signals. I've got some questions about that. It would be cool to have the empeg running during some outdoor activity of some kind. What would make it even cooler is to be able to control it while out of the car enjoying the party.

I know the factory installed speakers would not be incredibly useful for that purpose, and I supose that is an issue for a later project, but there could be something done about the infrared signals. Because there would be a line-of-sight issue even within range of the empeg, I'd need another solution. I've read about certain devices that can take in a signal, then bounce it back out again. Is there an IR device like that? What is the range of the remote it'self?

Did I explain myself clearly enough?

DiGNAN

I've seen a unit for TV's and Home Stereos that you place in line of sight with whatever you're controlling, and it communicates with those devices normally, but the remote that goes to the unit is RF, so there is no line of sight restriction. The only problem is getting this to work with the empeg. I'll have to look around and see if I can figure out where I saw it.

I believe in the very early days of this empeg BBS someone mentioned that they mounted their empeg in the trunk and used an IR repeater to control it from the dash.

Calvin

Yes, this was discussed and implemented I believe back in September, the thread starts here.