One week with the Pyra

[rygD]

I watched the display video and I think I have seen touch layers that were close to that grainy. I think it was on some somewhat old Toughbooks. The Pyra display may be worse. If I am correct about the Toughbooks I remember how much I hated using them and would use an external display when I could. I still used them pretty often for about 6 years, so I guess I would prefer to get something better on the Pyra. I completely forgot how bad those Toughbooks sucked until I watched that video. (Not all Toughbook and other ruggedized laptops with resistive touchscreens are bad, so don't think I am saying those should be skipped if you can get one at a decent price. Other than that, I loved them.)

 

[EvilDragon]

Thanks for the video @EvilDragon. It seems to be an error/scam to me, it's strange that you can't get a refund for this. Maybe you can talk with them and, at least, get an explanation of why the screens have that problem. I doubt a producer make such a bad stuff intentionally like @PowerGod stated.

No, that's defininitely our own fault.

The display doesn't have a touchscreen, so the one we're getting is custom made (BOE buys them and attaches them to the display for us).
We got these for review and approved them.

It was a bit bad communication with Nikolaus combined with bad luck: I told him to test these and he tested the accuracy, electric functionality, etc. He didn't think he should test the picture quality as well.
Unfortately, his minimal OS installation he used to test had a black background with a mouse pointer.
And it looks perfectly fine in dark areas.

I thought he tested the picture quality as well so happily gave my okay.

And with that approval, we are at fault.

The manufacturer didn't do anything wrong.
Don't forget that there are various touchscreens out there. It could be meant for a dot matrix for some industrial device. Grain doesn't matter here.

No, I am the one to blame here, but mistakes happen, and now I need to find a way to sort that out.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

Thank you for all the information @EvilDragon. Hope you can get a good "mid" point on this issue. Maybe there are some people that are OK with the grain and you can sell them at factory price.

 

[comradekingu]

If its the case that the default DE is MATE, we can all help out localizing it to our native languages here https://www.transifex.com/mate/MATE/

 

[b_o_b]

Don't forget that there are various touchscreens out there. It could be meant for a dot matrix for some industrial device. Grain doesn't matter here

That was my initial thought as well when I saw the video - I have worked with industrial touchscreens and they look exactly like that. In these kind of environments they need to be able to withstand dirt, water, changing temperatures etc. clear image is less important.

 

[erico]

Just checked the video.
Yep, very noisy, gaming and art are going to suffer with it (movies not much), but again, I thought it was going to look way worse.
The situation is probably worse in real life with our own eyes instead of recorded hd.

I´m confident such problem can be solved.
In fact, within the problems such a production could have, I find this to be just a little slip.
Keep it up!

 

[Luke-Jr]

Thought of some things to test with the nubs...

Does drag-and-drop work right? That is, can you press the nub and move it while it is pressed?

Will press-and-hold work for right clicks? What is the plan for middle-clicking?
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The problem is not the LCD, but the touchscreen - which is good, having to search another LCD would be a really big problem and a massive setback at this stage of the developement(the whole sync-/rotating-/potential tearing-stuff again).

Wait, the touchscreen is affecting visibility? :/

Regarding, how it looks, you can compare it here:
http://www.downlink.de/pyra/Touchscreen-Problem.mp4

I can't even see a problem (or perhaps it's so minor I'm mentally writing it off as video compression?). (edit: definitely more noticable later in the video) It's not unusably bad... Would it make a backup unit cheaper to use these for them?

 

[Blue Shadow]

Wait, the touchscreen is affecting visibility? :/

Sure, as it is an additional layer the light have to pass through. But it can also affect it in a good way. As said, some graininess will achieve a matte look, reducing annoying reflections.

I can't even see a problem (or perhaps it's so minor I'm mentally writing it off as video compression?). (edit: definitely more noticable later in the video) It's not unusably bad...

It is a comparison video. As it seems first Pandora, then Pyra, then both.

I agree, especially scaled down to pyra size it does look acceptable for me. Might be different in daily use though, and I understand that many people would consider it as very bad, in these times in particular, as most people are used to use glare-type screens with ultra high resolutions.

Would it make a backup unit cheaper to use these for them?

No more than 10$ cheaper, otherwise ED would loose more money than a rework would cost (1000 Units with estimated 5000-10000 reworking costs)

But:

That was my initial thought as well when I saw the video - I have worked with industrial touchscreens and they look exactly like that. In these kind of environments they need to be able to withstand dirt, water, changing temperatures etc. clear image is less important.

Maybe ED could sell pyras with the current touchscreen for the same price or even a bit higher - as ruggedized-screen-editions

 

[levi]

Thought of some things to test with the nubs...

Does drag-and-drop work right? That is, can you press the nub and move it while it is pressed?

Will press-and-hold work for right clicks? What is the plan for middle-clicking?

As far as I've read, the mechanism as to how the nubs will implement mouse movements and clicking has been discussed before, but not decided upon.

One option is just to do what the Pandora did - don't use the clickiness of the nubs but use the motion of the right nub to implement clicks; left and right for those buttons, and down for middle (and up for double-click).

Another option which I tend to favour is to make both nubs move the mouse. Click left nub and move the right nub to left drag and vice versa to right drag. But it's unclear in that setup how you'd middle click. And what happens if you move both nubs simultaneously is undefined, so it might also provide some difficulties in implementation.

And there are yet other options which I've forgotten. Judging by the video it's just set up so the left nub moves the mouse relatively, with no clicking or dragging implemented yet as far as I can tell.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Yes, pretty grainy in comparison to the pandoras screen- Is there any possibility of selling the grainy touch screens to someone who might have use for them? Perhaps they can be used elesewhere- though I guess they are made to size for the pyras screen?

 

[Swordfish II]

As far as I've read, the mechanism as to how the nubs will implement mouse movements and clicking has been discussed before, but not decided upon.

One option is just to do what the Pandora did - don't use the clickiness of the nubs but use the motion of the right nub to implement clicks; left and right for those buttons, and down for middle (and up for double-click).

Another option which I tend to favour is to make both nubs move the mouse. Click left nub and move the right nub to left drag and vice versa to right drag. But it's unclear in that setup how you'd middle click. And what happens if you move both nubs simultaneously is undefined, so it might also provide some difficulties in implementation.

And there are yet other options which I've forgotten. Judging by the video it's just set up so the left nub moves the mouse relatively, with no clicking or dragging implemented yet as far as I can tell.

I always wondered why the shoulder buttons weren't used for clicking. Pretty easy to double click them, hold them, whatever. With the dual shoulder buttons, left could be left click, top right right click, and one of the bottom (bottom right) for middle.

Actually, now that i really think about it, the same setup but left and right click on the two right shoulder buttons, since those are used the most, and middle click on a left one.

 

[levi]

Probably because you don't want random left and right clicks happening while you're carrying your Pandora in your bag. I guess it could use the lid switch to deactivate those buttons though.

Mind you, now I type it, i think there was also some complication because the shoulder buttons are bound as keyboard modifiers - shift and ctrl. Presumably that stops approaches like those use by MouseAB to set keyboard keys as mouse buttons from working.

 

[Swordfish II]

Ahhh that makes sense

 

[ible]

with a little time, one can develop a FunKeyMonkey module which would make a click&release of the shoulder buttons into a mouse press, but keep the shoulders as modifiers in case another key is pressed before the shoulder button is released. (_wb_ pointed this out at some point, somewhere, and bzar is the one behind FunKeyMonkey.) i suppose this should go on the wiki at some point.

being able to turn a FKM module off for games is possible, too.

 

[Luke-Jr]

As far as I've read, the mechanism as to how the nubs will implement mouse movements and clicking has been discussed before, but not decided upon.

But can the nubs press-and-move in hardware?

Probably because you don't want random left and right clicks happening while you're carrying your Pandora in your bag. I guess it could use the lid switch to deactivate those buttons though.

On that note, it seems to me there might be useful cases where you want those buttons to do things when the Pyra is closed (log current GPS coordinates? start covert recording?). Too bad they don't have some way to detect fingers vs pockets.

By the way, where is the microphone on the Pyra? I like how the N900's is on the side so I can record while it's in its case...

 

[rygD]

I thought it was decided that the default mouse actions would be left click as right nub click and right click as left nub click. They are backwards since you don't get the full range of motion while clicking the nubs. I could be wrong about that being decided, but if it is you can always change it to something else. Not sure about middle click, which I don't use very often since my trackball lacks a middle button.

 

[matzesu]

If i remember Correktly, Nub Click only works in center position..
but on Pandora, i just used " cut", and "paste" because its worked..., ctrl x ctrl v

 

[mclien]

Heating:

I can't say too much about the heat it produces yet, but it can be quite a handwarmer.
Right now, we have done nothing yet to spread or reduce the heat. We haven't put any heat spreader in there or connected it to the SD Card slots, so we're in the worst possible state now.

First: Nice to hear taht nearly everything works fine/like expected.

The the heating: as I've done some goldsmithing lately, I might like to experiment a bit with a headspreader made from silver...
(shouldn't be that expensive, since it wouldn't be a big amount of silver (but 50% more heatconductivity...)
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LCD / Touchscreen:
.....

Is it worth to try a pandora touchscreen on the Pyra Display, just to check?

Preordering:
.......
Oh, ans as many mentioned they would like to get two or more: I'll probably make a discount for that. Can't say how much though until I got the final prices, right?

Will that apply for people who did more than one pre-preorder, too?

 

[Zink]

Well, I'm trying to find out who the manufacturer of Pandoras touchscreen is (the last ones were also custom made for us), as that one really really rocks.

Actually in my unit (rebirth) the touchscreen is not very good in that it doesn't react when the pressed area is large (i.e. when using a finger). It works only with the stylus or if I bend my finger to use the nail, which is not always comfortable or possible. It would be nice if the Pyra screen didn't have this flaw (I had several devices with resistive touch screens, and none ever behaved like that).

 

[PowerGod]

Actually in my unit (rebirth) the touchscreen is not very good in that it doesn't react when the pressed area is large (i.e. when using a finger). It works only with the stylus or if I bend my finger to use the nail, which is not always comfortable or possible. It would be nice if the Pyra screen didn't have this flaw (I had several devices with resistive touch screens, and none ever behaved like that).

My 1 Ghz had this problem too, it became a little better after some and hard pressing... I felt the difference from my older rebirth I was used too