> It would be much help if we had a fixed date even if it's on August or so.
The shipping date is fixed to be two days after we receive completed players from our manufacturer.
The date we receive players depends when we receive components. Some components, such as tantalum capacitors, were on 20 week lead times - others were on 1 YEAR lead, so we had to redesign for alternatives. The reason given by the component fabricators for the shortage of surface mount passive components is the recent explosion in mobile phone production.
I know some of you think that these excuses are wearing thin, but that's how it is. Sourcing 413,000 surface mount components is not as easy as phoning Farnell and handing over your card details.
Until we have a definite delivery date for every single component we cannot commit to the surface mount run - the penalty for booking time on the robotic production line and subsequently missing it would be astronomical.
We have a tentative date booked for surface mount assembly to begin in mid April. I believe our cut-off date to commit to this was last Friday, and at that time we had some outstanding components to source for the display board. We're hoping to resolve the issues early this week and determine whether we can still go ahead with the April run. If we can, units will start to ship late April, with the bulk of that batch going out during May.
These delays are as frustrating for us as they are for you - probably more so, as we've invested hundreds of thousands of pounds on components that are sitting on the shelf.
> And what about a new newsletter?
It's sitting on my PC whilst Daniel finishes updating the mailing list. I hope to get it out today, but in the meantime I'll post the interesting bit of it (Mk.2 specifications) to the General forum here.
Rob