I personally would not mind preorder but i think two things are mandatory:

1.
Your really need to trust the ones you are doing business with, either by personal knowledge or proved track record for similar projects before.

knc fails on both of these points for me.

2.
You have to produce a public plan and budget (and do a little bit of community communication) that looks reasonable and trustworthy.

knc fails here as well.


sure things MAY be a success even if above is not fullfilled, but I think in this case it's more of that the buyers (and sellers) WANT it to be a success...

If Mars is performing to spec. and is working today (PCB and SW was finished if I understood everything correct?!), they could earn shitloads of money by selling these devices since they would still be supperior to many other sollutions that is not even shipping.... I really do not buy the argument on focusing on an asic... IF they actually has a booked slot in a fab (which I seriosly doubt), then would they now have quite some time while waiting for that slot and it's production to ship out other devices....