> I think you are seriously overestimating the > difficulty in producing/devloping a M42 DSLR, the only > signifigant difference from a K100D would be > a screw thread flange instead of a K flange > and a M42 pin actuator instead of the k lens > lever actuator. Nearly all of the remaining > hardware would be the same and the software/firmware > would be mostly deleting existing features M42 couldnt > do. > jco >
Sounds good on paper. Conceptually very simple. Minimal modifications required to an existing camera. Legal requirements and licensing modification of hardware and software on an existing camera very expensive. Very expensive to pay engineers to do it. Very expensive to produce at low volume. Let's see... a half-dozen engineers at $100K/year for at least 6 months is $300K. Ramping up production to produce 1000 units, probably $500K (I have no firm numbers to support this, but it seems reasonable). Licensing modifications from an existing camera.... a $mil or so. So, you've got 1000 cameras that cost $10M to produce. That's $10K each. OR, you can pay 20 engineers for a year, making custom ASICs or patching something together using off-the-shelf components to try to make them from scratch. Probably quite a bit more than the $10M to make 1000 units. Your choice. If you and the other 10 people on the planet buy theirs, then they'll have to charge $100K per unit to break even. Economies of scale will not allow it to happen. Not enough market. -Cory -- ************************************************************************* * Cory Papenfuss, Ph.D., PPSEL-IA * * Electrical Engineering * * Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * ************************************************************************* -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
