MOTM

As you saw by my posts on the '480, I have been working hard on getting 4 of these units ready to
ship out to beta testers today. I didn't mess the layout up *too badly*, so the final design
should be ready in Nov.

For the 'old-timers' on the list, you know my end-of-the-year drill. For the newbies, here it
goes:

a) I am closed from Dec 15th to Jan. 6th
b) the LAST DAY to order *kits* for sure delivery this year is Nov. 10th. Kits ordered after this
date *may or MAY NOT* get shipped.
c) I don't plan to ship any '510s or '480s until I get back in Jan. The manual for these will run
over 30 pages each (on CD-ROM with sound examples). I just don't have the time right now to write
them both, and kit them both.

Now that the main R&D portion of the '480 is behind me, and with no NAMM in sight, focus now
shifts to shipping out the backlog. My 1000 100K log pots arrived last week, and 2500 Switchcraft
jacks are due today. Let the massive kitting process begin! I estimate that the entire kit
backlog (exclusive of new stuff like '510 and '480) will be gone by the 1st week of Nov. This
includes bonus modules owed since the Civil War. As of today, there are 137 kits in the backlog.

The last 6 weeks are dedicated to assembled backlog: I'm shooting for 100%, but it depends mainly
on my stamina. I can do 100-120 modules for sure, and 25 MOTM-190 pc boards are being stuffed
this week by a contractor. There are 168 modules in the assembled backlog, so I hope to get at
least 75% done.

It could be worse, I could be like Sun Microsystems. I looked at their fy2002 numbers, and their
TOTAL annual profit was the revenue for *6 hours of 1 day* out of the entire year. Somehow that
seems depressing to me.

Paul S.