A last side note on Wonko's statement referred to Mr. Marchionne, CEO of FIAT cars.
Don't you think that FIAT's outrageousness is just the cause (or one of the main ones) why FIAT is failing ?
Yep, that would be my personal opinion, but the point I was trying to make is that you won't be able to "talk" to Mr. Marchionne, let alone convince him about the foolishness of the pricing of some of his cars nor about the complete lack of any valid new product from his R&D and/or designing staff.
But that is industry, an established one, and there are tens of car manufacturers, each one with a set of comparable models, so, if you need a car you can compare and choose among very similar or similarly target products (this is called "competition" and can lead to wider posibilities f choice).
Zalman is as well part of industry, AND their thingy is - at least - on third generation, Iodd 2501/VE-200/VE-300.
Isostick is a "first release" and still belongs more to artisan work/prototyping than industry, and the other (similar but not actually the same) devices such as "digital floppy disks" for the manufacturing industry (which more or less use the same principles) are in a much higher price range (both as "absolute price" and as in "price compared to actual features/contents").
See some of the links in the TANSTAAFL thread:
http://reboot.pro/to...all-iso-images/
http://reboot.pro/to...es/#entry123565
As I personally see it, the Zalman ZM-VE300 is also outrageously priced - being it an industrial product - but the early Iodd 2501 came originally on the market priced US$70 (see above thread).
Now, around two and a half years later you can have from Zalman a "better" product at 70% of it's original price.
If some of the "decision maker morons" in any of the other electronic hardware industries for once wake up and do some work, they may decide that (.iso or .img) image selection can be a market and start producing something similar, the price for a "Zalman like" will go down in no time (and as well something *similar* to Isostick may well enter production/the market).
If you wait some time you will get a "better" Isostick for a smaller price (that is IF - hopefully - the success of the little thingy continues ) as always happens due to market laws, right now you are simply comparing apples with oranges , which though established as being possible and scientifically valid :
http://www.improbabl...1-3-apples.html
results in practice in an exercise in futility .
The (indirect) competitor to Isostick (besides the poor man's alternative of a bootable USB SD reader + grub4dos or other bootmanager) is - with far less features - the Chinese thingy talked about here:
http://reboot.pro/to...stick/?p=148740
https://sites.google....cc/cardrom_en/
can be bought for around 20 bucks:
http://www.ebay.com/...=item416e1e6b2d
The "comparison table":
https://lh6.googleus.../comparison.png
with "traditional" DVD and pendrive, is BTW one of the best pieces of (involuntarily) humour I have seen lately.
Wonko