The Rise of Pyra - A story about the past 6 months

As the only advantage of the Anbernic SP over the Pyra is a PSP Emulator which only works good for some not that demanding stuff, i think about going back to Pyra this afternoon, Pyra also got the advantage that you have an Mini PC ..

Some of my Dreamcast Games got the wrong File Type so they dont work in Reicast, but maybe some times there might be a new Dreamcast Emulator? whe will see..

As a member of the random people on the internet i'll say you have my full recognition. Thank you for your hard work and also for the nice sum up!

matzesu said:

As the only advantage of the Anbernic SP over the Pyra is a PSP Emulator which only works good for some not that demanding stuff, i think about going back to Pyra this afternoon, Pyra also got the advantage that you have an Mini PC ..

Some of my Dreamcast Games got the wrong File Type so they dont work in Reicast, but maybe some times there might be a new Dreamcast Emulator? whe will see..

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Try downloading a different version of the rom eg from another region. My DC (physical, modded) is quite picky too.

The Issue was that it was GDE not CDE, or the other way around, but i ditnt wanted this thread to derail.. , also could be if more Peaple got an Pyra, they might help develop and whe can get Bookworm to run stable, so more Ports are possible..

Nilsnsn said:

As a member of the random people on the internet i'll say you have my full recognition. Thank you for your hard work and also for the nice sum up!

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Thanks

Askarus said:

aTc has pushed an update with a fix that makes Debian 12 stable, too.

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Any more details on this? Is it regarded as a non-optimal fix so it's trapped in contribution hell waiting for approval?

jedi23 said:

Any more details on this? Is it regarded as a non-optimal fix so it's trapped in contribution hell waiting for approval?

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It is already up and all you need is an

apt update
apt dist-upgrade

This is out for a few months already.
It is a fix that has been submitted long ago and aTc just did not push it.

Further I have investigated the cause for the broken _. However aTc does not like my proposed solutions and rather has a broken system than one with an suboptimal fix.
Further I investigated the exFat issue and all that needs to be done is to enable a parameter in the Kernel. That also has not been pushed.

So from how I see it, is someone would take take care about the OS, Bookworm would be way more stable than you all think.

I have no idea about the current state of the audiio AESS stuff.

I am using Bookworm exclusively and since aTc has pushed that freeze fix, my Pyra is rock stable.

I just installed the new housing on mine. It looks and feels great.
I want to test the new paint and see how sturdy it is (spoiler alert, probably not much).
This will be a great reason for me to use my Pyra again

As the Old Housing was allready quite Sturdy, i would suspect the New should be also that good, it did survive the Cause of my Hipp Movement Issues ..
I did test yesterday to Pockecarry the Pyra again but its double as heavy and double as big as the Anbernic SP, too much for my need to only play a bit Tetris and other stuff on the go..

matzesu said:

As the Old Housing was allready quite Sturdy, i would suspect the New should be also that good, it did survive the Cause of my Hipp Movement Issues ..
I did test yesterday to Pockecarry the Pyra again but its double as heavy and double as big as the Anbernic SP, too much for my need to only play a bit Tetris and other stuff on the go..

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It is not that it is less sturdy but less scratch resistent.
There is no glossy layer of paint on top of it.
That makes it look and feel way better.
Further it makes the layer of paint thinner, which allows for easier opening of the sliding battery mechanism.
As a downside it feels like it's less scratch resistent and might degrade over time just by holding it in hands a lot.

Like I said, those are all just guesses. I need to use my Pyra more and do tests.

Thanks for the news.
This story remain me how proud I am to wait so long (#2 months) for a unique device...such a crazy project and a great community.
Most important things is : Pyra is alive !
Unfortunatly I can't help you with my competence, or maybe if you need some special tools to drill or adjust some plastic case, in my job a lot of tiny tools are DIY-self-made with ingeniousity.
So feel free to contact me if you want, I'm in France.
Keep up the good work.

Regarding software.
I will make an other topic that collects all the issues I am aware of.
I plan to update that regularly if fixes are being pushed or someone points out a new issue to me.

One must think like a hero to behave like a decent human being.

Today is hardware day once more. The plan is to put all the remaining EU LTE mainboards into black housings and build as many EU Pyras as I have mainboards for.
There are still a few open orders from several months ago caused by a shortage of black housings.

Some teaster

I have been away from this community for quite some time.
I hope the pyra successor will use a more common interconnect for the board so maybe it can just use the raspberry pi CM formfactor. cause then it would be easy for others to just pop in a Pi, other ARM board or even RISC V, or make their own...

Great to see the 2 Months(tm) are coming to a close? or do they technically never end as the supply is kind of rolling... haha

I doubt a Pyra successor will be made by ED, as the current one is generating enough stress I would guess. I do hope some spiritual successor will be available.

This isnt even properly shipping and you talk about the _next_ device already, duh.
To be honest communities really changed in the past years, this forum is not very lifely anymore.
And with powkiddy and anbernic throwing consoles out like israeli bombs the handheld marked has no room for stuff over 150€.
Leaves us with linux enthusiasts, and they are also not what they used to be 10 years ago, geeks of today are always busy with something else it seems.
Id be willing to sink another grand of money into a project like this again tho, but we must not derail this, this thread is about the pyra and not a daydream.

What we need in my opinion is a Pyra refresh which greatly simplifies everything and makes the whole production way cheaper and way less error prone

What to change:
- No LTE/Modem -> Does not workproperly
- No sensors except Gyro and GPS -> We do not use the others anyways
- No quirky volume wheel, use buttons like anyone else
- No dual PCB design -> It's not like we make dozens of CPU board upgrades. Also, the peripheral needs to be updated anyway once we upgrade the CPU. Further, fabing the CPU between 2 PCBs severely limits cooling and limits the choices of possible SoCs because of limited height.
- Remove emmc, use an internal micro SD card instead -> Saves space and money, easy to upgrade, modern SSD are fast enough to feel good for booting
- New peripherals -> 2x USB-C, 2x USB-A, HDMI, Headphone jack
- Housing redesign (that one will be expensive but when done properly, saves a lot of time and money)
- Capacitive touchscreen without stylus, if we do a housing redesign -> Applying the Stylus requires an extra part and extra assembly steps, we might be able to use a bigger battery with that extra space
- No rumble/vibration -> Vauses issues and does not work properly with every unit
- No LED inside the logo, no sticker -> This requires extra parts and the assembly of the sticker takes much longer than one might anticipate. Further, The Pyra is not suitable for an always connected LTE device, so a scenario where the LEDs serve as a notification indicator falls flat. Notification LED functionality would further require extra software that we do not have
- For God's sake, no extra colors, just one option unless the production is proven to be stable

What to keep:
- The Keyboard is almost perfect. I would remove the French and German letters, and make them generic, so that everyone can map their own buttons
- Dual SD card on the outside
- The general design is good, too

If we would make a Pyra 2 that follows those rules, then the production would be quite cheap, the functionality would be pretty much the same and many sources of error would be eliminated.
When making the Pyra, I also was a strong advocat for all the special features and to aim for the highest of the hight. However, that turned out to be wrong and to cause too many issues.
Make one simple and solid device. After that, add one thing at a time and improve, like GPD did successfully.
This idea of making different CPU boards turned out to be bonkers and is only a liability. Make the main PCB cheaper by removing the emmc, LTE, vibra, sensors and this complexity. That will make the PCB cheap enough, so that people can swap the whole PSB if there will ever be an upgrade. It's not like that would make the shole upgrade process overly expensive.

So like the Pandora, but a lot faster, and whit good Quality Case ..
And yes, i know that the Pyra is not an Pandora, its a whole different Company even though its looks from outside like an Pandora..

Swapping the whole PCB instead of just the CPU Board: I had once the whole PCB Out from my Pandora (by Accident), i think the most difficult part for me whas to get the Display Connector in properly and the abxy buttons the right way, so if the new Pyra2 would have the Display Connector fool proof, i think this is then something everyone can do..

On the other side: The most expensive Part of the Pyra might be the PCB, so the Customers might then just Order an Upgraded Handheld instead of trying to change it themself and brake something..

Or: How about selling the Pyra Successor whit and whitouth Batterie if there would be an CPU Upgrade? This way, Customers can put the "old" Pyra2 on the shelf whitouth the Batterie, and put the Batterie in there new Pyra2..