Comment by placatedmayhem
7 hours ago
Just a heads up that PC Engines is winding down. The chip they use in the APU2 is EOL, and they've decided to shut down altogether.
7 hours ago
Just a heads up that PC Engines is winding down. The chip they use in the APU2 is EOL, and they've decided to shut down altogether.
Wildly ironic that an EU company doesn't ship to the EU.
Regulatory compliance shouldn't be hard. The idea is to quell negative externalities, not to shut off innovation itself.
> Because of unbelievably bureaucratic recycling regulations, PC Engines will NOT sell directly to end users within the EU.
https://pcengines.ch/order.htm
> EU - a single market ?
> Far from it, there are separate registration and recycling schemes for each of the 28+ EU member jurisdictions (and even a few of their provinces). What part of COMMON MARKET was so hard to understand for EU lawmakers ? Since there is no single registration available, and separate registration would involve mindboggling complexity, bureaucracy and costs, we do not sell to EU end users until the EU gets their act together. Please order from EU based distributors, or as a business customer.
> Business customers are expected to meet their obligations by registering in the EU countries they sell in.
https://pcengines.ch/recycle.htm
> Wildly ironic that an EU company doesn't ship to the EU.
Switzerland is not part of the EU in this timeline... But their rant sounds very much like an excuse, the WEEE is in effect at least since 2021:
"All EU Member States are required to adopt the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive 2012/19/EU, which sets rules for the collection, treatment, and recycling of electronic waste. However, some countries were granted an extension until August 2021 to meet the collection targets due to infrastructure limitations, including Bulgaria, Czechia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia" - courtesy Google AI overview
Being based in Switzerland, which is not a member state, PC Engines is not an EU company.
And in the end, 90% of people will throw it in the trash with everything else. I'm actually in the other 10%, but I live in the middle of a big city where I have electronic waste container like 300m away.
Btw, that's an awful website. I like simple minimalistic websites, but some people confuse "simple" with "give literally 0 fucks about the reader" and then I have 50-word long lines to read on my 32" monitor. Just put something like {max-width: 1200px; margin: 0 auto;} on the body at least.
You’re lucky. For people without cars anything other than curbside recycling is usually a nightmare. Ironically.