Is there really a light at the end of the journey...?

[ClockworkCoder]

If we tell a detailed tale of this "rerailed" derailed thread, and subsequently retell it, can we get a retail Pyra?

 

[levi]

Btw, What is the hold-up now?

Not necessarily any hold up. If the case he received was 100% okay, he still needed to order 500 more cases, and there will be a lead time on that work. And I don't know what the lead time on populating the old 4GB PCBs is, and it may have turned out they've oxidised too much and aren't workable, so more boards will need to be made.

All we can really say is the ED is too busy doing something to do a status report either here or on twitter. That's not unsual, and we can't really guess what's taking up his time.

Now I look, he did post to the kernel mailing list about a week ago with a software summary, and saying some more prototypes should be available in the weeks to follow. I can see from that list Notaz is still working with an uncased set of boards, and apparently those can be quite hard to get to boot (there's a current surge needed during boot and at certain points in the boot sequence the USB power is apparently artificially limited - if you've a battery also connected it can cope with this surge).

https://www.pyra-handheld.com/pipermail/kernel/2018-June/002500.html

 

[Christoph.Krn]

View attachment 31824

But you're a Staff Member, get it back on the rails...?

 

[Letalis Sonus]

This thread is already metarailed, you can't rerail onto rails that derailed.

 

[Kev2442]

If we tell a detailed tale of this "rerailed" derailed thread, and subsequently retell it, can we get a retail Pyra?

My hurt brains.

 

[Mese96]

My hurt brains.

railly ?

 

[Revan]

The definition of 'obsolete' is something that is either no longer used, or no longer useful.

The Commodore 64 may not be current, but it's certainly still used (and may be considered useful to a few people). Archaic? Perhaps, but not obsolete.

So the Pyra certainly won't be obsolete by any stretch of the definition.

So even being 32 bit and not as fast as the newer CPU's on the market, it can still be used for most of the tasks and as it is the only CPU in/for the Pyra it is by definition not obsolete.
It will be obsolete as soon as a new, better and compatible CPU for the Pyra comes out.

Now please stop this obsolete nonsense.

This is a non-sequitur. A component that has been succeeded by another iteration is by definition obselete. ARM Cortex is at 73 now, as I recall. If the OMAP5 was used in a new phone by a startup with nothing released before that phone, it will still be obselete. The screen may be new, the camera may be new, but the OMAP will still have been succeeded. When Ninty released the WiiU, using old components, just because there had never before been a Nintendo console with a touchscreen controller doesn't mean the hardware wasn't obselete. Just because there's no Switch with Pascal architecture doesn't mean the Maxwell architecture isn't obselete. The PS3 has the Cell processor. PS4 is X86. Would you say that the PS3 Is not obsolete by the PS4 just because there was no new iteration of the Cell, and sony used Jaguar instead? Look. I get the need to believe your 800 bucks was spent wisely, especially after all this time. But plenty of other devices used the OMAP5 (OG Droid included, which was a great device, but could not run any modern applications as of today.) Perhaps "obselete" isn't the right word, but the undisputable fact is that the monetary value of ALL the components in the Dragonbox Pyra have depreciated significantly after all these years. There's no opinion here, no right or wrong, it's just facts. It's the same as a PC from 2014, or a TV from 2014. In fact, most items, electronic or not, depreciate as such. Now your use case might not have lost value, but fiscally/technologically speaking, yes, your Pyra was worth a certain amount at inception. Now that all these years have passed, those same components have exponentially lost value and function, as modern, maintained applications give more thought to usability by modern devices & architecture.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

There's no opinion here, no right or wrong, it's just facts.

So in your world fact and truth are orthogonal?
I rest my case.

Btw, obsolete is, what's no longer used.

 

[Swordfish II]

So in your world fact and truth are orthogonal?
I rest my case.

Btw, obsolete is, what's no longer used.

"obsolete" depends on the person. My newest computer is 10+ years old. I own and drive a car older than me. The phone I am typing this on is 3 years old...and i just got it...

I do think society has turned into spec chasers without regard to need. All of you, I, and most only "need" the lowest processor, ram, etc.

Things are obsolete when they don't meet the basic need

 

[levi]

Wiktionary defines obsolete as the state of having gone into disuse, indeed that depends on each user of the word. My copy of Chambers (12th edition) doesn't even consider the word itself in need of definition (being so commonly known), but its meaning can be elucidated from its defintion of obsolescence, and it's basically the same as the wiktionary definition.

For me the Pandora and the Pyra (and the GP/GPH consoles that preceded them) are more about the community than the specs, so as the newest device that that community actively supports, I fully intend to make good use of mine.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

@Revan
The Pyra, irrespective of underlying hardware, is being actively supported and maintained.

I'm so looking forward to it.
[doublepost=1529820814,1529816735][/doublepost]So many have been brainwashed by modern consumerism: namely by what is termed "planned obsolescence".

Mainstream companies want us to believe that we *have* to buy the latest gadgets to be able to perform day-to-day activities. Truth is, often ironically, the majority of people who get caught up in this ideology only really use their electronic devices for email, social media and browsing. I concede - perhaps if they can't use Facebook, then, for them, the product may be thought to be "obsolete".

However (and thankfully), a considerable proportion of the Linux community are different. They (we) take hardware that others have considered "obsolete" (unsupported, unused or "no longer fit for purpose", at least from a narrow perspective), install fresh software, and ultimately make new things possible. We don't largely ascribe to the notion of hardware being disposable or necessarily having a maximum shelf-life of 6-18 months.

Here's a definition I like: Emergence

Pretty much all of the hardware I've enjoyed the most over the years have become "more than the sum of their parts": to end up being able to do so much more than any of the original designers ever considered possible.

 

[Bernd]

Nice Talk.

But some news would be great.

 

[rygD]

What, there's news?

 

[EvilDragon]

You will receive news once I have this case sets.
A FedEx pickup is planned for Monday (I'm handling the shipping this time since the last time with DHL the package magically disappeared - now I know exactly what's going on).

Sent from my Moto Z using Tapatalk

 

[Yogendra]

Well, well, well.
Are we really getting there?
Yes, it could be the case.

4GB RAM CPU Boards are working!

Finally, after a long, long search for the reason, Tony Lindgren found the real issue for 4GB RAM crashes.
It was a hardware and software fix. Even the previously produced boards work better now - and maybe a lot better with some changed timings e.

That does mean... well, the CPU boards should now be 100% finished.
And we might even be able to use the 500 bare PCBs we already have - if they can still be populated (as they have been sitting around for quite a while now).

A memory stress test still crashes after 10 minutes, but that is due to overheating, as it doesn't do this if a heatsink is added to the CPU board.

10 minutes without a heatsink is quite good though, as a memory stress test both fully stresses the CPU and memory, and doesn't happen in real life.

Nikolaus ran a 4GB Board without heatsink and 1,5GHz and did an apt-get upgrade which installed 400 new packages... without any issues.
After a few hours, he shut it down again. Without any crash or overheating!

Once the mainboards are finished and the new case has arrived, I'll assemble a full unit including our cooling solution, and then we'll no for sure.

This issue together with the rotation issue we had are most probably due to TI mostly having abandoned the OMAP5.
There are not many devices out there using the OMAP5 and therefore, no one has run into that issue before.
So yes, we might have some more low-level software work ahead of us compared to the Pandora, but it surely will be fun seeing the system evolve


The Mainboards

Well, with the CPU boards and the DIsplay boards final now, the last thing missing are the mainboards.
What's up with those, you might ask?

Well, the have arrived at Global Components - but there was an issue. Some of the silk layer (that's the white print on the PCBs) are too close to some of the BGA pads. And as we don't populate single PCBs but multiple ones at once, the tolerance is an issue - and some BGAs might not be populated properly.

Unfortunately, the chinese manufacturer hasn't checked that thoroughly (last time, they fixed that issue themselves without telling us upfront). It would be possible to populate them by doing some VERY accurate measurements - but that would cost over 3000 EUR.

That was pretty annoying - but luckily, producing another set of bare PCBs WITHOUT this layer is a lot faster now, as all the tools have already been created and the software for the machines has been written.

The new PCBs will arrive June 18th (so in around a week) and will be populated shortly afterwards.

That leaves...

The Case

Well, according to my contact, a (hopefully) final case is already on the way to me.
It has been shipped a while ago via DHL but has not arrived yet.
He'll try to get a tracking number for me, and hopefully, it'll arrive this week.

This case should have the logo and everything glued in. But I won't assure that until we have it here.


... and then?

When the case is fine, 500 transparent cases will be produced, which will be used for the prototype preorders.
After that, the moulds will immediately be moved to the new company so we can produce the remaining cases in proper color. As most companies close down in August in Greece, we have to be fast here. Hopefully, that'll work out - then we could have a small release party at the GamesCom this year and who knows, maybe some users can already pick up their units there.

But yeah, that would be a miracle, as we also need to get the pre-cut material for the heat dissipation and I don't know yet how long the production will take. That said, it's existing material that just needs to be cut - so it shouldn't take long.

So who knows - one can dream, right?

With all the boards and the case finished, it's also time for CE / FCC testing, which we're planning for early July.

So yay.. we got another few steps closer to release

Final round... Fight!

I am calling it now.

• Something happened to the cases in transit
• Once they do finally arrive a week late it turns out a minor correction is still needed
• Transparent case production takes a bit too long
• Cases are transferred to the new company
• August happens
• Second week of September case production begins

Naturally, I hope that I am wrong, but based on historical results I am probably too optimistic.

Pessimistic jokes aside, some important steps forward have been made. I am thankful for the update ED. Sorry for the impatience, the wait is not easy.

Well I hope you get it all together by cristmas

 

[Bernd]

Well I hope you get it all together by cristmas

Which year?

 

[ThinkPad]

I cant understand,
How this cases are traveling so long from Greece to Germany,
Every time it took weeks!

WTF are they shipping it from the North Pole or something.

 

[ible]

Santa Express ain't all it's cracked up to be. delivery to anywhere in the world, but only on one night each year...

 

[levi]

To be fair, it's currently two weeks since the OP so in practice it will have taken a little over two weeks (since it was claimed to have already been sent in the OP), and I'd guess 500 sets of plastic parts make a pretty big package to send. While Greece is in the Eurozone, the most direct route following the coast between Greece and Germany crosses Albania and some of the Yugoslav states, and I'm not sure which of those are eurozone countries or even part of the schengen zone. In my experience crossing borders between eurozone and non eurozone can take a while, even for small parcels, and that's even once they've found a big enough van heading in that vague direction.

Otherwise they may have decided to take it across the meditteranean and dock the boat in italy, but we know what trouble trying to dock foreign owned ships there can cause just at the moment.

 

[Kev2442]

Let's hope it's not shipped to Spain, with a freight train to Germany, as here in France they've been on strike for more than Two Months™.
...
What cliché ?
They're only celebrating May 68 !

P.S : Two months ? Are they waiting for the Pyra too ?