Is Everything On Track For Early April Production?

[EvilDragon]

As long as i can play some games, the dongle can go emulate

As long as I can play Amiga games everywhere, Pandora is for me!

Well, I did use it to play Speedball 2, Superfrog and Turrican 2 fullspeed on the go... so yes, it does work

 

[x68000]

Just tried some Amiga emus on the Wii and both are frustratingly slow - looks like the Pandora will be better straight off

 

[dupey]

(yes, we stopped the shipment of the boards because of WiFi - Michael first wanted to check once more if there is something wrong with the hardware and maybe find a very simple fix they could apply before shipping).

So you knew this for how long? I think i stay away from the board for a few days, before i write something i will regret.

 

[mvickers03]

Hey ED your a patient guy, and I'm sorry to ask this, I'm not rushing nor will I EVER cancel.. but do you have any rough approximation you could give me as to when production will start.. PM me if you don't want to make it public

any reply would be appreciated

 

[EvilDragon]

(yes, we stopped the shipment of the boards because of WiFi - Michael first wanted to check once more if there is something wrong with the hardware and maybe find a very simple fix they could apply before shipping).

So you knew this for how long? I think i stay away from the board for a few days, before i write something i will regret.

Knew that WiFi wasn't working yet? That's been known to the public for quite a while.
We just hoped that we could get it working until then. Michael is a very careful guy - so he wanted to check once more.

 

[EvilDragon]

Hey ED your a patient guy, and I'm sorry to ask this, I'm not rushing nor will I EVER cancel.. but do you have any rough approximation you could give me as to when production will start.. PM me if you don't want to make it public

any reply would be appreciated

As said above, we made the decision to ship, let you play and fix later (if a fix is needed).
So no need to hold back, it could start next week.

 

[dupey]

(yes, we stopped the shipment of the boards because of WiFi - Michael first wanted to check once more if there is something wrong with the hardware and maybe find a very simple fix they could apply before shipping).

So you knew this for how long? I think i stay away from the board for a few days, before i write something i will regret.

Knew that WiFi wasn't working yet? That's been known to the public for quite a while.
We just hoped that we could get it working until then. Michael is a very careful guy - so he wanted to check once more.

haha
no, i meant, that the boards weren't shipped as planned

 

[mvickers03]

Thanks for that.. I'll wait patiently.. Can't wait to watch everyone receive them over the next few months. Plus hopefully come and help you guys make them!

Good times!

 

[EvilDragon]

haha
no, i meant, that the boards weren't shipped as planned

Not sure, as said, I had to catch up with everything after the weekend.
Friday was when they should've shipped, maybe did didn't make it before the weekend and Michael told them on Monday to hold on for two more days (since the cases aren't there yet and he wants to check once more on WiFi).

 

[mali]

haha
no, i meant, that the boards weren't shipped as planned

I see where you are heading, but I also see now why ED was a bit overworked on the weekend. Those things are heavy and I understand why the team lets the info trickle out instead of posting all at once, tbh.

edit:
Ninja'd and I might be wrong. Maybe not, though.

 

[quadomatic]

Send me the two Pandora's I've ordered, and I will dedicate 40 hours working on this WLAN issue for free. EDIT: Just FYI, I am employed at THALES corporation as an embedded systems/firmware engineer, and I write drivers just like this for a living. If there is a driver issue, I will fix it. If its hardware, I will use all my resources (faraday cage, logic analyzer, WLAN radio receivers, etc.) to determine just what the hardware is doing and why its causing problems.

We went an entire page without this being brought up again

EvilDragon, what do you think about sending Torpor one to figure out what's going on?

 

[aliking]

I'm just curious what has set all this off. The hardware has been set for a long time, so what suddenly happened that the hardware is being checked again?

I think I could sum it into one direct question:

@Notaz, you're the resident expert on the WIFI, do you believe that it is going to require a hardware fix?

 

[Kayday]

I'm just curious what has set all this off. The hardware has been set for a long time, so what suddenly happened that the hardware is being checked again?

I think I could sum it into one direct question:

@notaz, you're the resident expert on the WIFI, do you believe that it is going to require a hardware fix?

Just in case Notaz is busy, I'll reply for him "Maybe" :lol:

 

[mindlord]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if Notaz knew what the problem was exactly - we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

 

[torpor]

I'm not really going to contribute in a big way until I have some hardware, and I don't expect special treatment just because I am volunteering, and after all my order number is less than #18, so in fact I'll have my Pandora order fulfilled, hopefully, pretty much before most other patient people in our community, but I've had a bit of a look at the sources for the wl_xxx driver in 2.6.34-rc and a few things jump out at me that seem to be related to packet-loss scenarios, which I'll discuss elsewhere .. thanks everyone for the vote of confidence, but as I've got a very low order # already, my point is this: ship me my Pandoras as per the schedule and I'll jump on this issue immediately.

 

[benji_stein]

Okay, got some news. Cases are fine so far, they managed to make it look much better than what we saw last Thursday (they got a new machine and asked if we could give them two more days to test if that does a better quality... Fatih agreed and they did a new test today and according to them, it does a MUCH better quality). Can't wait for the pictures.
Shipping and production will happen this week, so yeah, we lost a few days for assembly, but got much better cases.

OK, I've got a question that no one seems to have asked. Perhaps I should make another thread, because this one seems to be dedicated to the WiFi dongles/issue, which I'll gently push away with a 10-foot pole.

I was under the impression that the company had made a fair number of these cases, already, as would be indicated by the photos in the earlier official blog post:
http://pandorapress.net/2010/03/12/official-blog-a-dream-becomes-reality/#more-3471

Looks like hundreds (or at least dozens) of some of these parts. If the case company is now producing these on a different machine (new, as in newly bought by the company, or new as in a different one they hadn't tried our moulds on before), what happens to all these old parts?

Did we pay for them? Do they dump them? Can we get them to see quality? Can we use them to ship out some more of our first 105 boards to send to some more developers and/or people with good resources at their disposal (*cough*topor*cough*)? Why are they so willing (eager?) to try a different machine all of a sudden?

 

[aliking]

Just in case Notaz is busy, I'll reply for him "Maybe" :lol:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if Notaz knew what the problem was exactly - we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

Thanks guys, those are excellent test answers of what I wasn't asking . It's good to have a dry-run on these kinds of things.

@Kayday - It's a Yes or No question - what his gut feeling is. If the question was 'Will this require a hardware fix?' the answer can be maybe, sure. But noone 'maybe' believes something - you believe it, or you don't (or you won't admit either way)

@mindlord - I didn't ask what the problem was exactly.

I'm just saying that right now, he is the person who knows the most about the situation with the Pandora WIFI and I expect he has a level of confidence about whether it can be fixed in software. He is, of course, totally at liberty not to answer.

 

[Polossatik]

I'm not really going to contribute in a big way until I have some hardware, and I don't expect special treatment just because I am volunteering, and after all my order number is less than #18, so in fact I'll have my Pandora order fulfilled, hopefully, pretty much before most other patient people in our community, but I've had a bit of a look at the sources for the wl_xxx driver in 2.6.34-rc and a few things jump out at me that seem to be related to packet-loss scenarios, which I'll discuss elsewhere .. thanks everyone for the vote of confidence, but as I've got a very low order # already, my point is this: ship me my Pandoras as per the schedule and I'll jump on this issue immediately.

No disrespect to the other people working on the Wifi, but if you have the background and are willing to help this sorted out, then I would say the OP team should send you asap something, even if it's a not a full pandora but only the board itself for the time beeing.
People with your skillset and offering to help out, how many are we going to find ?

And by the way, didn't we had something like the dev fund ?
one special delivery of your Pandora's with flowers beer on top (buy also flowers beer for the other dev's digging into the base OS).

wayyasay people?

 

[Farox]

I'm not really going to contribute in a big way until I have some hardware, and I don't expect special treatment just because I am volunteering, and after all my order number is less than #18, so in fact I'll have my Pandora order fulfilled, hopefully, pretty much before most other patient people in our community, but I've had a bit of a look at the sources for the wl_xxx driver in 2.6.34-rc and a few things jump out at me that seem to be related to packet-loss scenarios, which I'll discuss elsewhere .. thanks everyone for the vote of confidence, but as I've got a very low order # already, my point is this: ship me my Pandoras as per the schedule and I'll jump on this issue immediately.

No disrespect to the other people working on the Wifi, but if you have the background and are willing to help this sorted out, then I would say the OP team should send you asap something, even if it's a not a full pandora but only the board itself for the time beeing.
People with your skillset and offering to help out, how many are we going to find ?

And by the way, didn't we had something like the dev fund ?
one special delivery of your Pandora's with flowers beer on top (buy also flowers beer for the other dev's digging into the base OS).

wayyasay people?

+1 i have thinked the same ...send one devboard to Torpor (if possible )

 

[Dead1nside]

It's definitely worth getting some hardware (even if it's development, and on loan) to Torpor so he can work on this, as soon as possible. Thanks for offering to look into it Torpor.

I think the team are handling this well. I think you'll have a situation where more than 1000 people want their Pandora now, with wifi dongle if necessary and the promise of replacement/repair in the future at some point if a hardware fault.