Hey guys, I'm Jonah from Simulant Shop - the website that sells those Retro Wifi SI modems.Dave wrote:We reached out to the guy and he's changing his policy. He does full returns and refunds for 14 days.Artificer wrote:I agree it looks a bit expensive especially with no returns if non functional.
I'm making a fresh batch of mine. It comes with a QL cable, so, there is that. It also has a DB9 connector, so if/when faster serial comes along with a useful driver it will work with that too. My current "serial port" is a brute force discrete logic parallel<>serial shifter into a 2K FIFO that clocks the data in and out at 1,500,000 bps. It's clunky, and not right for "civilian use" - and also it's expensive, bulky and often trips up, with no handshaking or error detection/correction.
Can I just say I am really happy you did reach out to us about this with Bo.
I admit it was some bad wording on our website and very misleading (and also untrue!). We had done lots of returns on those modems and have always done returns - the bad idea to add a "we accept no returns used and opened modems" type of line was due to most of the previous returns we'd done being down to user error, with wrong baud rates set etc or terminal software on their computers not being set up right. So we found ourselves swapping good working units and never actually swapping any defective ones! Anyway we added the "no returns!" warning just to try to get people to email us a bit more and retry things more and filter out some of those bogus returns. We'll always try to help as much as possible but some customers didn't try and just sent the package back to the return address we include on the label. The fact was we still did offer swaps and returns if people asked anyway despite it saying that. So it was just a bad idea.
Anyway it was poor judgement and as you say, UK law forces return policies anyway. I removed that warning as soon as Bo emailed. I'm grateful for you and Bo for reminding me that warning was still up, it was only ever supposed to be temporary while we worked out a better return policy or printed something in the parcel (or on the return label) to get customers to email their issues first.
Also I just wanted to defend the little modem we make too. I mean it it certainly wouldn't be anything without the awesome Zimodem firmware and that is why we write a lot of positive things about Bo's work on our website. It is fantastic what he does with that firmware. We use the ESP8266 which is cheaper than the ESP32 and that is reflected in our price. Ours is probably the cheapest off-the-shelf rs232 wifi modem out there including delivery worldwide. It's also got a case as standard too. Each unit is manually tested on an Amiga or other genuine retro computer before being posted out. So with soldering, making cases, testing and then also dealing with customer feedback/questions/returns it's really quite a good deal. We even host a small Amstrad BBS that users can test the units on too and include an instruction sheet with how to connect. So full support is there and a service to connect to and talk to us on the retro machine!
It doesn't have as many features as some of the other wifi rs232 modems out there, no LCD display or memory card slot etc - but it is reliable and works well. I run one on my own Amiga 4000 with a Hypercom serial card at 460800 baud which is just so fast for BBS use! It never lets me down and has been working great for over a year with daily use. We've had the modems reviewed and featured in both Retro Gamer magazine which is quite big here in the UK as well as Hackspace magazine also.
Again I can only apologise for that returns warning and now that it is rectified, I hope people wanting to get their old computers online will still see us as offering a viable option... I'm always here and happy to help if anyone ever wants to contact me via our website too. Thanks again. Keep up the great work too on the QL modem, that sounds fantastic. I've never had a QL but have various retro computers including other Sinclair/Spectrum machines. Hopefully I can get a QL one day and also buy one of your modems too for it
