ePIc card ordered!

We’ll see if it survives international shipping :-(

As long as the package gets to you, even if it gets mangled up, I expect the SD card itself will be fine. They seem to be pretty indestructible (in a physical sense). I’ve accidentally put some of my SD cards through the washing machine several times, and they survived it, though I might have just been lucky.

Anyway, I hope it’ll get to you safely.

I’m in NZ – almost as far from the UK as you can get – and all my ROOL orders have been fine. Don’t worry too much :)

NZ’s okay – just don’t expect international shipping to make it to India safely… 8~) …well, the international part’s probably okay…

I’m not really worried, I can’t really think of a
package sent to me that was damaged in a way that wasn’t really the sender’s fault.

Looking forward to seeing all these big commercial apps in action!

Where are you, Willard? Not in India, I presume! 8~)

No, USA. State of New Mexico, town of Socorro.

So, is India’s mail system really that bad?

Certainly to remoter areas it is, and probably to any but the wealthier parts of cities too, but I’ve no experience of that.

town of Socorro.

Oooh, not far¹ from Roswell. Some interesting town names around too – Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences. I guess you don’t get much wind, or there’d be problems for all those dishes.

So, is India’s mail system really that bad?

I can’t speak for India as I have no knowledge, but I think there are some places in the world where stuff is known to routinely “cease existing” while it is in transit. I suspect Italy might be similar, as I have noticed more than a few of those “delivery estimate” things you see on eBay and Rakuten making specific exception of Italy (which either requires insured post or simply isn’t accepted as a destination).

That said, back in 2002, I ordered an A3010 just prior to leaving to come to France. Cost £8, I wasn’t worried about that, I wanted it because it contained the mezzanine board². Parcel Force managed to lose it at the Aldershot sorting office. They first blamed subcontractors, and then when they changed (did they leave Royal Mail or get taken over by them again? I forget…), the eventual outcome was to be told that it’s an old tracing number, get lost.
Plus, YouTube has many videos of parcel delivery people tossing stuff over garden gates, inside bins, into (unlit) BBQs, etc. A natural consequence of paying per delivery rather than being ethical and paying the drivers for the time they work…

that was damaged in a way that wasn’t really the sender’s fault.

:-) My first Amazon Pantry order had a few lightly damaged things. Not worth complaining about, other than marvelling at the stupid of putting stuff into a big box alongside an 8l (~8kg) bottle of water and not putting anything like a sensible level of bubble packing around it. Like the delivery drivers, the biological Amazon-bots are probably expected to “fulfill” the entire box in thirty seconds…

That said, I’ve had an SD card run over by the car before (don’t ask). The plastic was a bit manged and cracked at the back, but the card still worked when put into a computer. They’re tough little buggers. It’ll be fine…

¹ This is the American definition of “not far”. It’s about 240km which is only marginally further than the nearest state boundary. I could say “or Mexico”, but it looks, from the odd boundary lines, like bloody Texas stole a city there…

² The ARM250 chip was not ready in time for the first production batch of these machines, so Acorn created a daughterboard with the separate processor, memory controller, video, and I/O chips on it. Picture here: https://www.retro-kit.co.uk/page.cfm/content/Upgrading-an-Acorn-A3010-with-an-ARM3-processor/

not far1 from Roswell. Some interesting town names around too – Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences. I guess you don’t get much wind, or there’d be problems for all those dishes.

The UFO that was shot down by Roswell was shot down from Socorro, using an experimental beam weapon based on Tesla’s designs. Oh wait, I’m not supposed to talk about that… ;-)

And for the VLA, it’s actually really windy up there on top of the mesa, but the VLA itself is kind of down in a hole. Those dishes are so big and heavy they probably ignore anything short of a tornado.

ePIc card arrived intact! I looked at some of the goodies and it all looks good!