Merchandise

We used to maintain a Wiki page about possible merchandise ideas but it seems more logical to move the discussion, where ideas can be more freely kicked around.

Here are some items of merchandise that RISC OS Open have sold at shows and user groups in order to raise funds…

• CDs full of all the latest source code and releases
• Mouse mats and coaster sets
• T-shirts
• Calendars
• Tools CDs

So that was then, this is now. What sort of things would you like to see? Add your ideas here and we’ll probably put it to a vote…

• Badges
• Bags
• Baseball caps
• Bookmarks
• Bottle openers
• Calculators
• Confectionery
• Corkscrews (for your picnic on the day of the Birmingham MUG Show )
• Erasers
• Key rings
• Mugs
• Pencils
• Pens
• Polo shirts
• Post-it notes
• Printed documentation
• Risc PC flash memory module to replace ROMs with in circuit write capability
• Rulers (ROOLers, anyone?)
• SD/microSD cards
• Scale rules
• Sweat shirts
• Towels
• Umbrellas
• USB flash drives (very slim design for internal Touch Book use)
• USB hubs
• Wills (Make ROOL a beneficiary)

Anyone have any particular burning desire to buy some Stuff? :-D

Along with Badges, I’ll add ‘enamel pin badges’ similar to the Acorn/ART/RiscPC ones.

Wills? Wow. Now that’s dedication.

Pint glasses to go with the bottle opener.

Beer to go with the pint glass?! :-)

Were you thinking about SD/MicroSD cards with the necessary files to boot RISC OS? Like one for the Touchbook, one for the Beagle and one for the XM etc. That would appeal to me!

Waterproof keyboard overlay to go with the above! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that.)

How about a RISC OS branded case for the BeagleBoard?

I looked into getting acrylic cases fabricated many months ago, and mocked up a prototype for the xM from thick card/drafted a design. Unfortunately, obtaining a fully machined acrylic prototype was prohibitively expensive, although companies did offer to amortise that cost over larger production runs. There is, though, a simpler, lower cost design which could be of interest to people, although not being a “complete” case.

Such a thing could be a little political, as it may be seen to discourage people from purchasing other (complete) ARM-based systems. Despite this, it’s probably important to recognise that there may be a number of people who own boards/gubbins but are unlikely to upgrade to a full system – e.g. they may currently be using home-made cases and also may not want to part with their board for the few days necessary to upgrade to, say, an ARMini. Therefore, perhaps this is worth pursuing again. At this year’s Wakefield Show, I learned of the Fab Lab in Manchester. This could be useful in reducing costs (although is of little help to me in Bristol, particularly as one needs to attend a safety session first, around 2 weeks beforehand IIRC). Commercial rates would also apply, if they were for resale rather than personal use. Finally, another RISC OS dealer may still have a small stock of prefabricated cases available, so maybe an arrangement could be come to whereby a few of them could be retro-fitted with cool ROOL stickers.

Finally, another RISC OS dealer may still have a small stock of prefabricated cases available, so maybe an arrangement could be come to whereby a few of them could be retro-fitted with cool ROOL stickers.

Apologies for wearing my CJE hat on here, but yes CJE Micro’s do have the BB-xM acrylic cases in stock (see webpage here )

Of course, once you put the board into an acrylic case, it does make it rather hard to get at the various expansion headers later!

T-Shirt & Pin would be cool.

I wonder what ROOL plans to have for sale at the London show in October… USB sticks of sources and/or tools? And what’s the plan for small-change items which will publicise the project as well as provide a physical reminder to donors?

Other than “A fast and easily customised operating system for ARM devices”, is there already a slogan or similar which could be included on potential T-shirts? I think that “ARM reunited with its twin: the OS it grew up with” could be a starting point for discussion¹ if any merchandising orders are going to be placed in the next month or two.

¹ That’s actually a bit of a mouthful.

I wonder what ROOL plans to have for sale at the London show in October

I turned up at the last London show ready and willing to buy whatever tat ROOL had on offer just to support them. But they had nothingnothing much for sale. Puzzled.

ISTR buying a mug from them last year.

Things have to be ordered in certain sized batch and we have to be sure of selling that batch. We’ve generally found that we saturate the market in major shows pretty quickly and usually have some items left over afterwards. Sometimes, we run out, but the sales have slowed so much that it’s just not worth re-ordering another big batch of Stuff.

It may be that after a while there will be demand again for a new set of merchandise, but you can see how quiet this thread is – there’s actually not all that much interest. I think that now, the bounty scheme is a more positive way to support ROOL and support RISC OS at the same time, so I encourage people to have a look at that and consider donating.

I still need to buy a mug /blush The Archive ones are totally faded now!

Plus, it seems wrong to have a (free) Ebuyer mug, and not have a RISC OS one!

Aren’t there online sites which let you supply a logo for a bunch of merchandise,
and they’ll print stuff more or less to order? I could be wrong on this, of course,
but I think I’ve seen PC indie game companies doing this kind of thing.
cafepress.co.uk seems to be an example.

Hi Andrew H.,

I always waited if the merchandise talked about would surface in the ROOL online shop. You know, there are quite a lot of RISC OS users who will seldomly visit (UK) shows.

Anyway, there are companies who will do batches of 1. Slightly more expensive per item of course.

Aren’t there online sites which let you supply a logo for a bunch of merchandise,

One is Spreadshirt

They have a minumun amount of money before they payout.

What about a few mugs? calendars go out of date if you don’t sell them.

The other thing I’d like to see is something aimed at non-RISC OS users. For example everything you need to try out RISC OS on a beagleboard, including the rom image and HardDisc4/util with all the free utilities browser, editors, that you can persuade people to allow you to bundle. The you can try getting magazines to put it on their CD. That way just by copying two files onto the SD card and typing a command at the Supervisor prompt they can have a fully working RISC OS computer (booting from the RAM disk) with all aspects of the Beagleboard XM working. Noone else can do this due to copyright issues.

We do still have some ROOL mugs left. We’ll be bringing them along to the London Show in October.

Can you put one aside for me please, Steve? Don’t want to miss out!

• Mouse mats and coaster sets
• Badges
• Bottle openers
• Confectionery
• Erasers
• Key rings
• Pencils
• Pens
• Rulers

The above are (some hopefully relatively cheap) examples which could be possibly used to promote ROOL outside of the RISC OS world, e.g. prizes for any groups wanting to organise Christmas quizzes… and hoping to attract a wider audience to take part.

Not all of us make it to the shows, any chance of adding merchandise to the store?

Preinstalled 32Gb microSD maybe? and a bunch of stickers in different sizes

Stickers with RiscOS and Acorn logos to “upgrade” computer housings. Particularly 3D stickers.

Stickers with RiscOS and Acorn logos to “upgrade” computer housings. Particularly 3D stickers.

Pretty cool idea. I used to buy OpenBSD CD’s at £35 every 6 months to support the project primarily, but ultimately I wanted the stickers.