Unfortunately, I've got a pretty sad newspost today - which will also explain my lack of updates, posts and assembled Pyras.
Let's start with a quote from good old Lemmings:
Well, we were all good. Assembly had restarted (still slow, but we are still using the remaining old cases), new cases had arrived, I was catching up with work which meant that I would also be able to spend more time assembling Pyras soon.
The rooms were setup, everything had mostly sorted, so after GamesCom, assembly should be faster again, I was even considering hiring another employee to help with work as it's just too much to handle at the moment.
That was the plan. But something happened. Nope, not a volcano. But much worse (at least for me).
When I came back from Gamescom, I first had to deal with Covid-19 again (but this was somewhat expected).
However, one of my customers (a REALLY loyal one, he ordered the GP2X from me and was active during the GP32 times) informed me, that someone is selling new wares on a marketplace that can usually only be found in my shop in Germany.
He bought one - and found it fishy that it had been sent from Ingolstadt (my hometown) as well, so he did contact me asking if I know the person.
And yes, indeed I did. One of my employees (no, don't worry, it's not Askarus or anyone from the community here).
After a bit of investigation, I found out that this was not the first time this happened. In fact, as far as I can tell, the employee had sold goods worth at least 16k EUR within the last year.
Yep, that's pretty shocking for a small shop as ours - and that's quite some damage. No Pyras have been sold, so that's some good news.
So now I had and still have to face multiple issues at once:
Oh well - this was quite a downer, caused me tons of extra work and is the reason, a lot of emails, messages, etc. to me have not yet been answered, no Pyras have been built during the last month and I didn't even have time to reply to any questions on the boards or similar.
I did not try to run away and hide - I was simply fully overworked, getting only a couple of hours sleep per day.
Well... but... not all is bad. I don't want to end this newspost with only bad news, so let's continue with some Pyra news as well!
Not that bad though, as we still have around 100 cases ready for assembly, so we can continue assembling Pyras.
The person previously handling the project has left the company, so I had a meeting with the new ones responsible.
They think it's possible to use a robot to handle the coating which will increase the quality, be faster and also a bit cheaper.
However, they don't have any of the dark chrome color left - and the minimum order quantity is 60kg, which is pretty expensive.
Back then, they had a bigger customer who used this color, so we could also use it, but that project is over.
So it's unlikely we can continue the dark chrome color - which is a shame, as I really liked it. They'll check what other projects they have right now, so maybe we'll get a cool new color instead!
The black color is no problem, of course, as it's a standard color.
I'll let you know and send you pictures once I know what other color we could get at the moment!
Additionally, askarus will be back helping regularly assembling units.
This was A LOT more work than anyone anticipicated - but according to an email I received from him, it seems very likely he'll get it to work!
What's the AESS subsystem? Well, it's the hardware accelerated audio system of TI's audio chip we're using together with the OMAP.
At the moment, it's completely unused - which means, that all resampling, rerouting, etc. needs to be handled by the OMAP5, which means it slows down the system, heats it up a bit and doesn't allow to fully use the capabilities of the chip.
Without AESS, the audio chip always expects 96kHz audio - and the OMAP5 has to resample it whenever you play audio.
So this should improve the situation quite a lot!
That's it for the moment - I hope to have better news for you soon!
And... thanks again to everyone for your patience, support - even when I don't find the time to reply to anything during the last few weeks. Rest assured that this is not because I want to hide from any bad stuff, but simply, because the above issue caused so much time and work, that I simply couldn't do it.
Sorry again for that, and... you're all incredible, and I would've gone crazy without you a long time ago!
Let's start with a quote from good old Lemmings:
"What the bloody 'ell 'appened"?
Well, we were all good. Assembly had restarted (still slow, but we are still using the remaining old cases), new cases had arrived, I was catching up with work which meant that I would also be able to spend more time assembling Pyras soon.
The rooms were setup, everything had mostly sorted, so after GamesCom, assembly should be faster again, I was even considering hiring another employee to help with work as it's just too much to handle at the moment.
That was the plan. But something happened. Nope, not a volcano. But much worse (at least for me).
When I came back from Gamescom, I first had to deal with Covid-19 again (but this was somewhat expected).
However, one of my customers (a REALLY loyal one, he ordered the GP2X from me and was active during the GP32 times) informed me, that someone is selling new wares on a marketplace that can usually only be found in my shop in Germany.
He bought one - and found it fishy that it had been sent from Ingolstadt (my hometown) as well, so he did contact me asking if I know the person.
And yes, indeed I did. One of my employees (no, don't worry, it's not Askarus or anyone from the community here).
After a bit of investigation, I found out that this was not the first time this happened. In fact, as far as I can tell, the employee had sold goods worth at least 16k EUR within the last year.
Yep, that's pretty shocking for a small shop as ours - and that's quite some damage. No Pyras have been sold, so that's some good news.
So now I had and still have to face multiple issues at once:
- One employee less - which means I had to handle shipping all the goods myself (so even more work)
- I have to deal with all the legal stuff with my lawyer as fast as possible to try to recover as much from that lost money as possible. I can't count the hours I've discussed the whole issue with him.. hours I'd rather have spent assembly Pyras.
- I had to get a new employee as soon s possible to get some work offloaded (she will start on October 17th)
- Well, and I'm missing 16k money, which meant I needed to temporarily get it from somewhere else.
Oh well - this was quite a downer, caused me tons of extra work and is the reason, a lot of emails, messages, etc. to me have not yet been answered, no Pyras have been built during the last month and I didn't even have time to reply to any questions on the boards or similar.
I did not try to run away and hide - I was simply fully overworked, getting only a couple of hours sleep per day.
Well... but... not all is bad. I don't want to end this newspost with only bad news, so let's continue with some Pyra news as well!
The new cases - and a new color...?
Let's start with the new cases. They have been lying here for quite some time, but due to the issue mentioned above, I didn't find the time to contact the coating company.Not that bad though, as we still have around 100 cases ready for assembly, so we can continue assembling Pyras.
The person previously handling the project has left the company, so I had a meeting with the new ones responsible.
They think it's possible to use a robot to handle the coating which will increase the quality, be faster and also a bit cheaper.
However, they don't have any of the dark chrome color left - and the minimum order quantity is 60kg, which is pretty expensive.
Back then, they had a bigger customer who used this color, so we could also use it, but that project is over.
So it's unlikely we can continue the dark chrome color - which is a shame, as I really liked it. They'll check what other projects they have right now, so maybe we'll get a cool new color instead!
The black color is no problem, of course, as it's a standard color.
I'll let you know and send you pictures once I know what other color we could get at the moment!
Help in assembly
As mentioned above, a new employee who will handle the shipping will be in my shop October 17th. I need to train her for a few weeks, but that should hopefully give me a lot more time later to assemble Pyras.Additionally, askarus will be back helping regularly assembling units.
AESS almost working!
In regards of software, Nikolaus (@hns) has continued to work on porting the AESS subsystem from an older kernel to the current one.This was A LOT more work than anyone anticipicated - but according to an email I received from him, it seems very likely he'll get it to work!
What's the AESS subsystem? Well, it's the hardware accelerated audio system of TI's audio chip we're using together with the OMAP.
At the moment, it's completely unused - which means, that all resampling, rerouting, etc. needs to be handled by the OMAP5, which means it slows down the system, heats it up a bit and doesn't allow to fully use the capabilities of the chip.
Without AESS, the audio chip always expects 96kHz audio - and the OMAP5 has to resample it whenever you play audio.
So this should improve the situation quite a lot!
That's it for the moment - I hope to have better news for you soon!
And... thanks again to everyone for your patience, support - even when I don't find the time to reply to anything during the last few weeks. Rest assured that this is not because I want to hide from any bad stuff, but simply, because the above issue caused so much time and work, that I simply couldn't do it.
Sorry again for that, and... you're all incredible, and I would've gone crazy without you a long time ago!
