Received this - the guy doesn’t speak english apparently:
“”“
Hallo Oliver, Ich würde einen Shruti MK2 ordern, den ich für einen Freund zusammen baue. Ich habe ja immer noch die 3 MIdipal, wo ich das Flashen nicht hin bekommen. Kannst Du mir bitte ein Angebot machen, wenn ich die 3 Amtel da direkt mit von dir bekomme. Ich hab mir zwar schon 2 leere besorgt, bekommst trotzdem nicht hin. Das wäre super!
”""
I don’t understand the bit about the MIDIpals and the atmels. What’s the deal?
He has 3 MIDIpal he cant flash and needs new atmels for them. I always thought they were SMD…
i’d order a shruthi mk2 i’d like to build for a friend. i still have 3 midipal that i can’t seem to manage the flashing. please can you make me an offer to get the 3 atels directly from you. albeit i have sourced already 2 empty ones, but i can’t get it done. that would be super!
ah maybe he wants an offer that incudes not only the shruthi but also the other atmels. his german is not that clear either.
i have to agree with rosch: his german is not much more grammatical than vanessa’s english.
here is what i make of it: he wants to order a shruthi kit and is asking about the price for 3 pre-flashed atmels for 3 midipals. so either he believes that midipals have socketed atmels like a shruthi, and that you have to exchange those chips in order to update its firmware - or maybe he is trying to build 3 midipals from shruthi digital control boards?
or maybe it’s just another bot…
oh also, the “ja immer noch” in “Ich habe ja immer noch die 3 MIdipal” seems to suggest that you already know what he is talking about - as if he was just continuing an earlier conversation about those 3 midipals?
Maybe he still has unfinished midipal kits from the side kit run?
He ordered 3 MIDIpal kits a long time ago, so I guess he’s stuck at the flashing step and would want pre-programmed chips instead. No way I’m going to rebuild my TQFP32 flashing rig, though…
[edit:] @pichenettes: yes, that’s probably what he’s talking about.
i didn’t even know that there ever was a midipal kit. 
The first run of MIDIpal kits required the builder to flash the chip himself - at that time I could not find a TQFP32 socket that would be competitive with asking the builder to do it himself with a $5 programmer from ebay. Didn’t go well… Later I found a relatively cheap TQFP32 socket and built a rig to pre-program them, but it was quite unreliable, and I ended up breadboarding a MIDIpal with this nightmarish TQFP32 socket just to make sure everything was okay. Not the best memories…
Maybe you request sending back the built MidiPals for flashing? Or redirect him to some clever german trusted builder who can flash this?
ok, glad i could help. now back to soldering that turing machine kit…
I expect completion by 19h00 latest 
well, i’m actually building two, hoping that selling one of them will partially finance the one i’m keeping, so it might take a little longer. also, this interweb thing keeps distracting me, which doesn’t help, either.