Why don't plugin developers venture into hardware offerings more?

[Miles1981]

4x Quad Core aka 16 core ARM processor on this beast. DSPs are modular, so can be upgraded. I do feel sorry for the developer who has to port all the programming from fixed point to floating point though, it's not like it's a small amount of algorithms!

What do you mean by DSP? ARM doesn't do DSPs.

[Ichad.c]

4x Quad Core aka 16 core ARM processor on this beast. DSPs are modular, so can be upgraded. I do feel sorry for the developer who has to port all the programming from fixed point to floating point though, it's not like it's a small amount of algorithms!

What do you mean by DSP? ARM doesn't do DSPs.

You're right, late night typing syndrome. Though it is interesting to note that the lines are a bit blurry these days: The concepts of Von Neumann, Harvard and modified-Harvard architectures are slowly intermingling especially with RISC processors.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Hardware is very different, especially if it's using mains power. It needs more expertise and much more money.

I have seen hobbyists working with fatal voltages building pretty safe products for their own use. It's a skill that can be learned without a PhD. (not that I would recommend).

In practice ability to build hardware is mostly about money, and a lot less about skill.

And what about safety regulations and warranties etc?

[stratum]

And what about safety regulations and warranties etc?

Management skill is something you can buy with money, if you can afford to order 1000 custom plastic boxes and PCBs from China you can probably hire a few professional managers to create a company structure that handles the issues you mention.

[HoRNet]

When we explored the possibility to make a hardware box out of our GuitarKit we stopped for a simple reason: costs.

To be able to rival existing product in the market we would have made thousands of units to keep the costs down and apart from the building costs, when you have 5000 boxes stored somewhere you need the connection with the distribution to put them in the stores, handle problems with warranties and so on...

Unless you have a big budget (1 Million Euro and more) i think it can't be done on a proper scale.

Saverio