Let's move the moulds!

[Pyramancer]

My Pandora is now suffering multiple hull breaches and I'm too lazy to swap the case out.

Have you considered using force fields to fother the hull breaches in your Pandora?
[doublepost=1509565578,1509565522][/doublepost]And if the new Greek company can't make the Pyra cases either, maybe we should have a force field instead of a case. No doubt the technology for that will be ready before the Pyra is. Although power drain from the field generator might be a show stopper...

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Again a useless 2GB / 4GB discussion. It doesn't matter what you want in this thread. It is no option to go with 2GB.

Why is that no option? They've shown that the Pyra is very capable with 2GB.

 

[Grench]

Again a useless 2GB / 4GB discussion. It doesn't matter what you want in this thread. It is no option to go with 2GB.

From your previous posts I have yet to see anything you consider to be a favorable outcome.

Frankly, 2GB should be fine for the vast majority of the sane pocket computer usage task sets that the OMAP5432 can keep up with.

 

[levi]

Plus you'll probably see paging/swapping happen in programs well before hitting 100% physical memory utilization.

Only if you configure swap that is. Linux doesn't do it unless you first give it the space to do it in (either a partition or a swapfile).

I run 2GB on my netbook and 2GB on my new build server (which is a second hand desktop, so tops out at 4GB if I wanted to upgrade it). I've not built anything especially big on it yet, I guess - the biggest thing was probably the whole FLIF tools at the same time. But I also built that back in the day on the previous machine in that spot, which was at the time maxxed out with 512MB, and I don't think I turned swap on for that. It was rather slow, but it did eventually complete.

Mind you, I also had to recompile the kernel back when I first tried it on my ARM 6 system, and that at the time had 16MB of RAM. Mind you it also had no net connection or working graphics, so after rebuilding the kernel to make things work, I couldn't figure out what to do with it, so I switched back to the inbuilt microcomputer OS quite quickly. That would probably have been Linux 1.something rather than the behemoth it is these days (which thankfully, I've never needed to recompile thanks to it being a matter of plonking the odd .ko file in the right spot today.

But still, I rarely use swap and I've never managed to make linux fall over when building stuff. It's a bit like magic, but when you think about it, source code is just a type of text, and text is tiny when compared to pictures, or music, or videos. That said, I've also transcoded a DVD on 2GB and that worked without swap, but I can imagine more easily how that can be broken down into components, although to be fair it's going to have to be very clever to compress against previous frames when it can't actually store more than a couple at once. More RAM makes the CPU work more efficiently because it can cache more stuff, or enable busy programs to do more stuff before having to do output, but I've been living with 2GB or less all my life, and even when I could upgrade my build machine to 4GB for under 20 quid I've just never felt the need yet. The original 1GB on this netbook was crimping my style somewhat mind you.

 

[Zwerg01]

Why is that no option? They've shown that the Pyra is very capable with 2GB.

27 people ordered a 2GB version, 1064 ordered a 4GB version. You have to find at least 500 who are willing to downgrade to 2GB. I dont belive that you will find them. Otherwise you would have other numbers from the preorderers.

Second, if you have 500 together, what about the people with a low preordernumber? If you are number 3 and consist in 4GB. You will get the pyra month later. So you get angry and have to ask, is this fair if i support this project for a long time.

 

[mecksg1]

27 people ordered a 2GB version, 1064 ordered a 4GB version. You have to find at least 500 who are willing to downgrade to 2GB. I dont belive that you will find them. Otherwise you would have other numbers from the preorderers.

Second, if you have 500 together, what about the people with a low preordernumber? If you are number 3 and consist in 4GB. You will get the pyra month later. So you get angry and have to ask, is this fair if i support this project for a long time.

i think it would be known if you wanted a 4gb pyra but was offered a 2gb and you said no, then yes you would be getting it later, that is why you are given an option if it is there. personally i ordered a 4gb pyra and if i got the option of a 2gb i would take it and upgrade the board later. also im not asking for a free 4gb board either. i would pay for the upgrade or if they gave a discount. mainly it would be up to the individual take the 2gb or not if offered. i think there would be enough to do it but it is still up to ED and the gang to decide that. in ED we trust

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

27 people ordered a 2GB version, 1064 ordered a 4GB version. You have to find at least 500 who are willing to downgrade to 2GB. I dont belive that you will find them. Otherwise you would have other numbers from the preorderers.

Second, if you have 500 together, what about the people with a low preordernumber? If you are number 3 and consist in 4GB. You will get the pyra month later. So you get angry and have to ask, is this fair if i support this project for a long time.

 

[Pyramancer]

27 people ordered a 2GB version, 1064 ordered a 4GB version.

Hmm... by my count there have been at least 37 orders for the 2 GB version and at least 1212 orders for the 4 GB. [Makes no difference to your point of course, just thought I would point that out.]

 

[levi]

FWIW, judging by the number of people who've posted to these news threads since it looked likely 4GB parts would be delayed who are saying they're happy to take a 2GB part, at least for now, against how many people who've said they need a 4GB unit regardless of how long it takes (only a couple I can remember), I woulnd't bet against him managing to find another 470-odd people to make up a 500 unit 2GB order, if he can get the message out even to people who don't read these boards regularly, and explain it as well as he has done to us. Can't say for sure, but it doesn't strike me as impossible.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

27 people ordered a 2GB version, 1064 ordered a 4GB version. You have to find at least 500 who are willing to downgrade to 2GB. I dont belive that you will find them. Otherwise you would have other numbers from the preorderers.

Second, if you have 500 together, what about the people with a low preordernumber? If you are number 3 and consist in 4GB. You will get the pyra month later. So you get angry and have to ask, is this fair if i support this project for a long time.

I'm pretty sure most of the people who pre-ordered the 4GB one did so just because it was there. If there was only a 2GB one people probably would have ordered that instead.

I don't see anything unfair about people who are willing to take a cut in RAM getting theirs before people who aren't, personally.

 

[rygD]

27 people ordered a 2GB version, 1064 ordered a 4GB version. You have to find at least 500 who are willing to downgrade to 2GB. I dont belive that you will find them. Otherwise you would have other numbers from the preorderers.

Second, if you have 500 together, what about the people with a low preordernumber? If you are number 3 and consist in 4GB. You will get the pyra month later. So you get angry and have to ask, is this fair if i support this project for a long time.

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure the prepreorderers (the first couple hundred production units) are more understanding than the average person that heard about Ithe Pyra and decided to preorder.

Additionally, unless things have changed, the preorder page for 4GB units explicitly stated that they may not happen, and that only the 2GB is guaranteed.

Not really seeing any problems other than a handful of people being upset because they didn't read. Reminds me of the articles and video that said the Pyra would only cost the preorder amount...

 

[erico]

Any quick news on the molds? Did they arrive safely? Have they been inspected by the new company? Rock on.

 

[rygD]

Any quick news on the molds? Did they arrive safely? Have they been inspected by the new company? Rock on.

Yeah, seems I misunderstood what ED said in his post, but news would be nice (and give us other things to discuss than what was in the thread I just crawled out of).

Any dates on the test run?

 

[directive0]

Have you considered using force fields to fother the hull breaches in your Pandora?

The EPS grid is offline and with the main computer offline I can't access emergency forcefields. I do have some thoughts about using the main deflector array to emit a coherent nadion pulse that may serve as a stop gap. But without getting down to deflector control it will be tricky. I may have to route control through auxillary systems. I hope everyone in the Holodeck is okay.

Seriously though, I have a replacement case and DS hinge that I'm dying to swap out. I may do that this weekend.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

I guess if an email is sent out to all pre-orderer's asking if they wish to downgrade to two gigabyte and clearly stating that downgraders will receive their units earlier, it should be fine. If you want a pyra faster then opt in. But yeah, maybe some will be disgruntled all the same especially if loads of folks opt in. There might not be enough two gigabyte boards then?

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I guess if an email is sent out to all pre-orderer's asking if they wish to downgrade to two gigabyte and clearly stating that downgraders will receive their units earlier, it should be fine. If you want a pyra faster then opt in. But yeah, maybe some will be disgruntled all the same especially if loads of folks opt in. There might not be enough two gigabyte boards then?

They'll have to make more then! Or say that they're out, and they'll have to wait for the new boards anyway so they might as well not downgrade.

 

[levi]

Well, he can limit it to 500 boards less the 27 already pre-ordered or whatever limit he feels best. It can be on a first come first served basis. If it takes even longer to fix 4GB he can post again offering another batch of 2GB units, assuming he got less the 2*batch size downgrades.

Hmm... by my count there have been at least 37 orders for the 2 GB version and at least 1212 orders for the 4 GB. [Makes no difference to your point of course, just thought I would point that out.]

I'm not sure how you get 1212 4GB orders when the current preorder total appears to be 1091. Have you got some other source for this info than I have?

 

[Pyramancer]

I'm not sure how you get 1212 4GB orders when the current preorder total appears to be 1091. Have you got some other source for this info than I have?

No, no additional source of information. 1091 is the current number of preorders. My numbers are a lower limit on the number of preorders there have been. That is, there have been at least 10 cancellations of 2 GB units and at least 148 cancellations of 4 GB units. These numbers obviously miss some cancellations -- those that were made (or entered) in the same hour as new pre-orders, and presumably there have been very many of these, unless ED has some system of not processing cancellations in the same hour as he processes new preorders, which would be a bit of a weird system.

 

[levi]

As far as I've observed, preorders go up when someone goes through the purchase process on the shop, so can happen at any time, while cancellations happen when ED has a moment to process the requests (so usually at the end of a busy day).

I'm just a bit lost as to why you need to count cancelled orders when it comes to making PCBs - if they've cancelled their order, you're not going to assign a PCB to them, right?

 

[Pyramancer]

As far as I've observed, preorders go up when someone goes through the purchase process on the shop, so can happen at any time, while cancellations happen when ED has a moment to process the requests (so usually at the end of a busy day).

Indeed. In other words, we never know about pre-orders that happened in the same hour as ED processed some cancellations, unless the net number of pre-orders increased that hour.

I'm just a bit lost as to why you need to count cancelled orders when it comes to making PCBs - if they've cancelled their order, you're not going to assign a PCB to them, right?

Right. My comment was tangential to the discussion. Sorry about the confusion. Zwerg01 stated the number of pre-orders that have been made, and I said that more pre-orders than that had been made and provided lower limits on how many there have been. That's why I wrote that my numbers make no difference to Zwerg01's point; they make no difference to the discussion that was underway -- just a point of information!