April is here - so whats realistic :)

[lingenfr]

New title: June is here - so whats realistic

And they've kept us updated with the progress the entire time.

Not trying to tee up a fight or shatter anyones perception of reality. Brief, often confusing glimpses once or twice a month don't really fill the bill. The videos are fine and appreciated but they don't tell us about progress toward shipment. As we are now 8 months past the original delivery date, it would seem that some type of routine (weekly/biweekly) informative update is appropriate. I started to post a weekly question following up on the previous update in an attempt to get some information. Squidge closed the thread before one of the devs could answer. A continued 'let them eat cake' approach will probably cause folks to jump ship when (not if) the Pandora is not delivered in July. I agree they are close. Looking at history and the remaining work, I see no way they will be shipped or delivered in July. I will be happy to be proved wrong and appreciate that the devs are working hard.

 

[chad78]

Fact Correction - It's not 8 months. It's more like 2.5 years. It was supposed to come out in February, 2007. And that's just the first release date I was privy to. There might have been others before that.

 

[Exophase]

It was supposed to come out in February, 2007. And that's just the first release date I was privy to.

No it wasn't. No one even knew a thing about Pandora until late summer 2007. craigix wanted to have something out by the end of 2007, but even he said it wasn't very likely. Spring 2008 was the first real goal, but there was never a release date. The only release date has been November 2008.

 

[Dauric]

New title: June is here - so whats realistic

And they've kept us updated with the progress the entire time.

Not trying to tee up a fight or shatter anyones perception of reality. Brief, often confusing glimpses once or twice a month don't really fill the bill. The videos are fine and appreciated but they don't tell us about progress toward shipment. As we are now 8 months past the original delivery date, it would seem that some type of routine (weekly/biweekly) informative update is appropriate. I started to post a weekly question following up on the previous update in an attempt to get some information. Squidge closed the thread before one of the devs could answer. A continued 'let them eat cake' approach will probably cause folks to jump ship when (not if) the Pandora is not delivered in July. I agree they are close. Looking at history and the remaining work, I see no way they will be shipped or delivered in July. I will be happy to be proved wrong and appreciate that the devs are working hard.

Just remember that this isn't their day-job. They have regular jobs that have heir own levels of stress and office politics, and sure regular updates would be nice, but we don't want everyone involved to snap like dry twigs. They've already done a lot more than most of us would ever have been able to do, and they've put in a lot more testing and fixes than most of the big companies do. I'd rather they spend their time working on the Pandora than telling us about every time they take a s41t.

Any project will spend an increasing percentage of the projects time and budget making reports on the project's progress. Equilibrium is achieved when the project spends all it's time and money reporting on the nothing they're doing.
-Law of Project Bureaucracy

That said I reference the following thread at the other forums:

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=48010

Better than half say they'll wait "Until Death". A lot of the commentary in that thread has much the same line of thought:" I walked in to pre-ordering a Pandora 'Eyes Open' and I knew the risks when i spent the money. My money is currently spent, and OPLtd. is still showing progress, so I might as well wait it out." Including those with and without a hard(ish) deadline, still more than 90% are going to give it 'till August, and 3/4'th will be there 'till October.

Everything out there says that they're in the final stretch of the project, it's just getting cases manufactured and getting the final Pandoras assembled. Fears of mass-pullouts are being grossly overstated, and hysteria never helps.

 

[Sugar_Kane]

I'd like to see anybody else try clubbing together with a group of friends and bringing a device such as this to light. It's never been done before and I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but it is coming. It is a shame that some people think that they have some sort of right to own one immediately as the production isn't as zippy as they would appreciate it.
I know they have estimated and re-estimated the release date, but i'd rather they did that and delivered me a bug-free, rigorously tested device. I would stop complaining and let them get on with, if you can't wait then go and shake you fists at another corner of the internet.

 

[Dauric]

I'd like to see anybody else try clubbing together with a group of friends and bringing a device such as this to light. It's never been done before and I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but it is coming. It is a shame that some people think that they have some sort of right to own one immediately as the production isn't as zippy as they would appreciate it.
I know they have estimated and re-estimated the release date, but i'd rather they did that and delivered me a bug-free, rigorously tested device. I would stop complaining and let them get on with, if you can't wait then go and shake you fists at another corner of the internet.

+1 and well said.

I think that OPLtd presents an interesting case. Desktop fabrication devices* are becoming easier and easier to get access to, there may be a rise in "Open Sourced Hardware". There's research in to creating fabricators that can work with conductive materials and integrate micro-path circuit boards in to objects. There's some enthusiasm for the idea that instead of going to a retail store, you would download the schematics for what you want off the internet and then take it to Kinkos to have them "Print" the item.

*Desktop Fabricators, also known as "3d Printers" are devices that use an array of lasers to flash-harden a plastic resin in a vat based on a 3D AutoCAD or similar file.

If OPLtd does well, it may get more people to take a serious look and invest in micro-industry production methods.

 

[emcp]

It's never been done before

what a pile of horseshit

 

[bustaballs]

It's never been done before

what a pile of horseshit

Hi, I'm emcp and I like to insult people for the things they say without proving them incorrect in any manner and therefore making myself look like an asshole who doesn't know what he's talking about. Sorry guys.

 

[piercer]

It's never been done before

what a pile of horseshit

Hi, I'm emcp and I like to insult people for the things they say without proving them incorrect in any manner and therefore making myself look like an asshole who doesn't know what he's talking about. Sorry guys.

Yep he was rude, bit it was horse-shit.

I would recommend people look at these small examples as a small and unimportant selection of 'homebrew' development that has done it before, and in spades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Basic

Two small companies that nobody has heard of since (;-)) that started as hobbyists.

Just remember that this isn't their day-job.

Which is why it will fail - Steve Jobs/Wozniak and Bill Gates and friends did this hobby as their full time job.

 

[vputz]

Which is why it will fail - Steve Jobs/Wozniak and Bill Gates and friends did this hobby as their full time job.

Wouldn't be so sure of it failing (of course, depends on what you mean by "failing"). We're in a much more curious time than Jobs/Woz and Gates in terms of bringing something up from scratch; their end of things was much more on the design side, in a sense, because not much was really out there when the Apple and MS Basic came around. I'm not knocking the difficulty of the OP design process, but the challenges they're facing (because of the preexisting components) are slanted more toward packaging and assembly, and the demands of consumers are Much Higher nowadays (I'm surprised at how many people forget that the Apple II+, a "mature" PC at the time, didn't even have upper and lower case unless you rigged a wire in from a pin on the keyboard connector to a pin on the motherboard. Would consumers put up with an OpenPandora that didn't even have upper and lower case?). And I hope you won't say that Microsoft's early products were good--they were wretched. They were just the best thing going at the time.

So OP's challenges are different. The basic "hardware design" in terms of a motherboard that does about what they want has really been done for quite some time. It's the fine tuning and hardware assembly process and making the thing a polished hardware product that is taking forever.

What they COULD be doing a better job of is information. Joking about the "Law of Project Bureaucracy" is one thing, but I for one don't need lots of movies, pretty pictures, or anything like that to feel a little better--a five-minute "Hey, it's Monday--here's what's changed since last week: no news on ship date for cases, we're still waiting for a delivery of blurfls, and ED's laptop spontaneously turned into a bobcat so he's out of commission for a while" would be enough to at least feel like SOMETHING is going on. Even "Hey, it's Monday, no news but we expect to hear a case shipping date from our case manufacturers by Thursday" would be good.

Anything (no matter how small) to assure that the project still has a pulse is, in general, a good thing. Looking at the blog, I see lots of "progress reports" showing what has been done, but precious few saying where they are in the timeline and what is coming (and when). That's the sort of information I want.

 

[Dauric]

I would recommend people look at these small examples as a small and unimportant selection of 'homebrew' development that has done it before, and in spades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Basic

Two small companies that nobody has heard of since (;-)) that started as hobbyists.

Just remember that this isn't their day-job.

Which is why it will fail - Steve Jobs/Wozniak and Bill Gates and friends did this hobby as their full time job.

You've just contradicted yourself by showing examples that disprove your own point in one post. The Apple Computer Company wasn't putting food on the table until those apples were assembled and shipping, neither was Microsoft while they were demonstrating Altair Basic, they were getting their rent and utility money from other jobs.

And both of them had naysayers claiming that they'd never be able to compete with the industry giants IBM and Intel. They were full of horseshit too.

 

[Dauric]

[

What they COULD be doing a better job of is information. Joking about the "Law of Project Bureaucracy" is one thing, but I for one don't need lots of movies, pretty pictures, or anything like that to feel a little better--a five-minute "Hey, it's Monday--here's what's changed since last week: no news on ship date for cases, we're still waiting for a delivery of blurfls, and ED's laptop spontaneously turned into a bobcat so he's out of commission for a while" would be enough to at least feel like SOMETHING is going on. Even "Hey, it's Monday, no news but we expect to hear a case shipping date from our case manufacturers by Thursday" would be good.

Anything (no matter how small) to assure that the project still has a pulse is, in general, a good thing. Looking at the blog, I see lots of "progress reports" showing what has been done, but precious few saying where they are in the timeline and what is coming (and when). That's the sort of information I want.

I'll agree that I'd like to see something in the nature of a regular weekly update, but they're at a point where a lot of what is going on is outsourced to manufacturing firms with access to the big injection-molders and auto-solderers, and the like, and the OPLtd. guys get their updates from the manufacturing firms that don't cater to an information hungry audience like ourselves. The most Craigx could offer in the way of an update on the Pandoras is "we sent the order 10 days ago, there's 20 more days to wait for the rest of the parts." "we sent the order 17 days ago, there's 13 more days to wait for the rest of the parts."...

And updates like this will only serve to fan the flames of trollhood demanding that they be doing something instead of waiting, of course if they work on side projects other trolls bitch and moan that they're not working on the Pandora...

 

[lingenfr]

Uh... not really. In an update a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned that they were working on issues with the hinge before the remainder of the case parts could be ordered. Are they done? While your speculation is probably based on knowledge and experience, I have my doubts as to whether it is based on facts. I find it hard to believe that every two weeks there is not something that even the great unwashed, ungrateful masses could understand. I agree as was posted earlier that it can get out of hand, but I don't think a brief, informative update is unreasonable. I'm not going to be convinced otherwise, but I am willing to drop it.

 

[bustaballs]

I don't get it. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will work on something for years and years before mentioning anything about it to the public and people here complain that these guys don't mention something new after 2 weeks?

 

[vputz]

I don't get it. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will work on something for years and years before mentioning anything about it to the public and people here complain that these guys don't mention something new after 2 weeks?

Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft haven't had my money in their bank account for the last eight months either. I view our relationship with OPL as one of a casual investor: I'm willing to give them money early on speculation to see them finish a project--but in return for that investment, I want reasonable visibility into the process.

For the most part, we've had reasonable visibility... but as an investor, I think we're underinformed. I don't mean videos. I mean the "current status" blurb on the front page ought to have current status and an expected completion date or "next news by" date for each uncompleted item.

Take this:

Create mould of final case (can be done once the case fits, takes 30 - 35 days)

Do we have a mould for the final case? When can we expect one? Have they even started a mould for the final case? Wait a sec, does the case even fit? This is CURRENT status? When was it updated?

I'd rather see

Create mould of final case (begun, est. completion 28 Jun)

or

Create mould of final case (order sent 1 Jun, awaiting est completion date, expect news by 15 Jun)

That's all. I don't need a video, or an explanation of how great it will be, or any rah-rah like that. I just want to know that the process is moving and when to expect the next update. I think that's reasonable and doesn't even take much time.

 

[Dauric]

I don't get it. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will work on something for years and years before mentioning anything about it to the public and people here complain that these guys don't mention something new after 2 weeks?

Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft haven't had my money in their bank account for the last eight months either. I view our relationship with OPL as one of a casual investor: I'm willing to give them money early on speculation to see them finish a project--but in return for that investment, I want reasonable visibility into the process.

For the most part, we've had reasonable visibility... but as an investor, I think we're underinformed. I don't mean videos. I mean the "current status" blurb on the front page ought to have current status and an expected completion date or "next news by" date for each uncompleted item.

By Wall Street standards most investors don't have that kind of information either. Sony's PSP go was under incredibly tight wraps, and industry analysts were predicting that Sony was about to stop manufacturing PSPs at all given the drop-off in UMD production and sales. We now know that it was because of the shift to the downloaded format, but until the E3 unveiling of the PSP Go that was only speculation based on public knowledge about the current state of the PSP X000 series.

Take this:

Create mould of final case (can be done once the case fits, takes 30 - 35 days)

Do we have a mould for the final case? When can we expect one? Have they even started a mould for the final case? Wait a sec, does the case even fit? This is CURRENT status? When was it updated?

I'd rather see

Create mould of final case (begun, est. completion 28 Jun)

or

Create mould of final case (order sent 1 Jun, awaiting est completion date, expect news by 15 Jun)

That's all. I don't need a video, or an explanation of how great it will be, or any rah-rah like that. I just want to know that the process is moving and when to expect the next update. I think that's reasonable and doesn't even take much time.

Now I'll agree that this kind of update would be nice to have. It would be nicer still if it didn't become a source of hassle and derision for the OPLtd. guys to deal with every time any prediction proved to be one day off. Honestly I suspect that that is one reason they don't bother doing this kind of thing is there's too many trolls out there that makes such updates a source of hassle having to deal with accusations of outright fraud and "Vaporware" that then Craigx has to blow time addressing in the forums, wasting yet more time and effort....

 

[bustaballs]

edit: read wrong

 

[squall987]

I would sure love to have one of these guys right now p&|a

Good luck getting these out soon Pandora crew!

 

[lingenfr]

then Craigx has to blow time addressing in the forums, wasting yet more time and effort....

I understand your point, but Craigix doesn't HAVE to blow time addressing anything. Put out the update and then let folks have at it. If the updates are scheduled and reasonably frequent (every two weeks) then folks can just wait for the next update. I agree that the front page would be better than the forum. If I knew when status would be updated, I doubt that I would even check the forums. I would check the updated status. Then they could kill all the threads about estimated ship dates etc. and be done with that whole line of crap.

 

[Dauric]

then Craigx has to blow time addressing in the forums, wasting yet more time and effort....

I understand your point, but Craigix doesn't HAVE to blow time addressing anything. Put out the update and then let folks have at it. If the updates are scheduled and reasonably frequent (every two weeks) then folks can just wait for the next update. I agree that the front page would be better than the forum. If I knew when status would be updated, I doubt that I would even check the forums. I would check the updated status. Then they could kill all the threads about estimated ship dates etc. and be done with that whole line of crap.

The problem with not addressing the issue isn't simply one of the forums, but that people writing articles for Endgadget and similar publications get a lot of input from forum trolls who are more than happy to give it to them, and with that slanted view articles get written out of context about how the Pandora is vaporware, and people who know nothing about the Pandora read those articles and Pandora gets a reputation for being a non-product, a reputation that can persist even after the Pandoras are completed and shipped.

The only way to combat the trolls and the resulting negative press is to respond in the forums, and make press releases, and generally waste time on PR which is a pain in the @$$, especially for programmers and engineers that would rather be doing -anything- else.

Read some of the recent articles that have been written about the Pandora. Even with all the movies showing the progress they've made, all the pictures of keymats and stacks of completed boards, the articles still use "If" to describe the Pandora's completion, not "When". That kind of thing sticks with people whether they know it or not, and that kind of thing can deeply affect your customer base.