Finished! (Well... the schematics, that is)

[myNewUsername]

More good news from the Electronica:

We found a Tetra-Band Antenna that fits onto the reserved space of our PCB, which means that the Pyra will be able to do 3G/4G.

 

 

[Kiga]

It's All Good!

Congratulations for finishing the schematics.

I was hoping for 4G since ED didn't talk about 3G in the last conference at RMLL in Montpellier, by the way which one is it? That's such a good news, plus we will have the planned accurate and sturdy nubs.

Too bad I will probably not be here to discuss about the keyboard layout but I'm sure that you guys will make a not bad choice.

 

[Foxgod]

Yeah!!, great stuff, congrats on the progress!

Hopefully there will indeed by very little revision, and as soon as the pre orders open il jump in line.

The possible future AMD upgrade really has my interest as well!! 

 

[Askarus]

AMD is generally very supportive concerning Linux. However, the proprietary fglrx driver drags along a huge pile of crap from ATI that they failed to clean up so far. It would have been best to entirely rewrite the driver from scratch directly after the acquisition, but that wasn't just a huge task needing a lot of manpower, the wanted design just wasn't practicable back then. But now it is about to happen: The fglrx driver will be slimmed down to a simple OpenGL implementation built on top of the core components of the free driver.

Nearly no games run because the driver does not support required features (Awesomenauts for example).


It would work fine with the official Catalyst driver but then I would have to use old Kernel and Xorg.


Maybe it's better with mobile devices but especially for gaming the OpenSource driver is crap.

The issue isn't that the driver is bad, it's that hardly any of the companies behind those games cares about the driver - at all. The driver does have a good overall quality and there are quite a lot of native commercial games that run absolutely great with it, e.g. pretty much everything from Valve.

However, it's a world full of dirty hacks and workarounds, anything that is done to work around one issue with a specific driver may backfire with a different setup...

Maybe it is and it might be a lot better if there can be some Pyra specific fixes/settings.

It's just my experience that games I tried didn't work because of the open source driver not supporting required features.

 

[matzesu]

I had a Dream:

I got a new Homebrewhandheld, but it was more like a "Gp2x" Device..

But it must have something to doo, whit the Pyra, as this news was yesterday..

 

[Zink]

Any plans on when you will shut up and take my money... I mean start preorders?

 

[EvilDragon]

Maybe January / February... depending on how well the prototype turns out

 

[matzesu]

^^Ok, this means "Two Months "..

 I have a fealing, the Pyra is much closer now than the Pandora in 2008..

 

[fusion_power]

^^Ok, this means "Two Months "..

 I have a fealing, the Pyra is much closer now than the Pandora in 2008..

Be careful, the Pandora was also always "two months" away...

 

[Glyph Reader]

^^Ok, this means "Two Months "..

 I have a fealing, the Pyra is much closer now than the Pandora in 2008..

Be careful, the Pandora was also always "two months" away...

Then again, we also had Craigx...

-Glyph Reader

 

[matzesu]

First Rule of Pandora: its "Two Months ",

Second Rule: If isnt "Two Months ", be happy

 

[Binky]

First Rule of Pandora: its "Two Months ",

Second Rule: If isnt "Two Months ", be happy

Conclusion: Happiness is impossible

 

[Kev2442]

This is the kind of news we'd like to get more often.

The 4G is something I've been waiting for, so that's awesome.

About the AMD chip, even though PC-wise I'm quite an NVIDIA fanboy, I must say that's exciting.

The only thing I'd like to know is :

What about the screen ? How's it going ?

I think we're all dying for the Sharp 5.2" screen.

Preorders in early 2015 ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QT7bhJTkAs

 

[Bosbeetle]

 

[TeDaDeS]

I wish I could deliver good news like this, ED is really on a roll with the Pyra. Also would like to try the nubs, just to know how they feel.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Janurary/feburary sounds good for pre-orders. I'm getting my pyra through link though due to the icp 2 fallout. ive only to pay the difference. Ed and link are stars.

 

[Majin Wamu]

My money is ready EvilDragon, my money is ready.

 

[DrHAX]

Prototype being auctioned off.. oooh. I like that idea.. it'd be interesting to see if one of us causal schmucks who use it daily would be able to get it. That'd also reveal any flaws or weaknesses in.the case.


I'll be eagerly awaiting if a prototype can be auctioned off. If whoever gets It should seriously use it as a tool to give insight to the production development as well as give findings and updates to the community... because from the sounds of it a pyra could easily be a laptop replacement.

 

[Ryan]

woo. i haven't bought the "openpandora" due to saving up the money for it and this being announced but i've followed up on both projects. big thanks for making this project possible, evildragon!! i will be buying the "pyra" most definitely. i'd also love richard stallman to try one out, that'd be fun.

 

[Grench]

These prototypes need to be thoroughly tested then. Quite a few won't work at all (as such a test run is used to setup the machine properly). Some of the working ones will go to devs like notaz and maybe one or two will be auctioned off.

 

There are two types of people who will be interested in purchasing prototypes.  Collectors and avid users.

The collectors may be willing to pay more for a prototype that will get put in a hermetically sealed package and stored for 20 years.

Getting them in the hands of avid users has more value to the actual prototype testing - i.e. they'll help find bugs.  However, since they're planning to 'use the hell out of it', there isn't the same collectors value to the unit.  I.e. they're less likely to be able to justify the over payment.  Their value is more to the Pyra development than just the $$$s that they may bid.

Both are valid.

In order to balance these, though, I have an idea.  Make the Prototype sales include 1 Prototype and a 50% off voucher for a production unit only valid after the first 1000 sell.

Cashing in the serial #>1000 voucher has little value to the collector - in fact, having it remain sealed into the new box with the prototype may have more value than actually cashing it in to them.

Having the insurance that they can purchase a production unit with the bugs knocked out at a discount would greatly increase the value of purchasing a prototype to the avid user.  They're planning to -use- both units, so resale value isn't as big of an issue.

I know that this system would increase the price I would be willing to pay for a prototype by ~$350.  But I plan to use the snot out of it and want a production version when they come out - but then maybe I'm just different.

Just a thought.