Finally, I found a few hours for a news update!
Sorry (once again) for the delay. I haven't had a free day for the last two weeks... and it won't happen until after GamesCom as well.
You might've also noticed I wasn't visiting the boards or IRC a lot - I'm not hiding, I'm just overwhelmed with things to do.
I even tried to do a newspost multiple times last week but literally fell asleep on top of the keyboard.
Anyways, you all deserve an update!
I'll also try to answer some questions I've seen here at the boards, but if I missed some or you have some more, let me know here at the thread and I'll try to answer them ASAP.
Okay, let's get started with some annoying news...
The cases
You probably guessed it: I didn't receive any final cases yet. If I did, I would've posted pics right away, you could be sure of that.
That would've been awesome!
According to FormAction, the material from the company in France hasn't arrived. Which sounds a bit like an excuse - they could've at least received enough for samples in that case.
Sadly, there's not much i can do right now (as August is the hottest month in Greece and no one is working there right now), but at least I'm planning the next steps with my contact.
We're currently evaluating to move the molds to a different production company. It's just round the corner, so the molds could be transported there within a day or two.
The company is Uniqueplast, and we've worked with them already (they're producing my SNES, N64, MegaDrive and NES shells).
They would've been the first choice of my contact as well, but they're more production based, they don't really do designs (except for simple ones, but the Pyra is anything but simple!)
Productionwise, they're a lot more advanced though, they've got 14 modern mold-injection machines (which means they could produce all cases easily within one day!).
Whenever I ordered 1000 of the above mentioned shells, I received them within 1 - 2 weeks.
So, we've already given them a Pyra case and are waiting for a quotation. If nothing really happens at FormAction within the first 1 - 2 weeks in September, then it's very probable we move.
This is REALLY annoying (why is it always the case? It was the same issue with the Pandora... and here we thought moving to a European company would make things easier...)
I'll keep you informed, but nothing will happen here until September.
So let's continue with better news, shall we?
The PCBs
I know it always seems nothing is happening here - mainly because there's nothing here that can be shown or seen.
But the last series of prototypes had still had a few issues and quirks left (nothing major though, thank god).
And all known majoe issues except for three have already been eliminated.
And one of those is not really an issue but needs some measurement with professional tools.
Those three are:
Let's start with 1.:
Nikolaus tried a few things, but he can mostly do hardware design checks and these seem to be fine.
So it's time for an expert to step in - and luckily, there's someone who really knows everything OMAP: Tony Lindgren (the maintainer of the OMAP kernel).
He mentioned he already helped out with memory issues with other projects (and they even had a faulty memory chip design on one project - let's hope that's not our issue) and he just received a prototype last week.
Besides the memory issue, he'll also work on some other patches (like the OMAP5 hanging when we're doing a warm reboot).
So let's all hope that issue will be solved as well!
Once the 4GB works... we can already produce the CPU boards (they're waiting to be populated at GC!)
And Nr. 2.:
It's not an issue, but we're lacking the tools to professionally measure the trace from the Wifi chip to the antenna.
HF is a very complex and delicate issue - if it's not 100% correct, you lose reception quite a lot.
Luckily, Nikolaus knows an expert in that area who also has the tools needed available.
He didn't have the time until now, but will have a timeslot ready end of August.
Nikolaus prepared a special PCB for the measurements. Once they've been done, another PCB will be made with the suggested changes and to confirm them.
Production time for those is only about a week, as these are simple PCBs with only the stuff needed for testing the reception onto them.
Nr. 3:
This is a bit tricky. Whenever you connect something to the USB Host port, you can hear the Pyra make sirring noises.
Everything works fine, but this is a bit annoying.
This often can be a coil, but we've replaced the one responsible for the USB port with different ones (all with the same value though), but that didn't help.
It's pretty hard locating the part that sirrs... once we managed to do that, a fix would probably be easy. But locating is isn't.
If there's any hardware expert here (or if you know one) who has some additional ideas how to locate the part: Please let me know
When that has been done... well, I guess there's nothing left to do here, so we can produce the mainboards as well!
Let's move to...
The Prototypes - who received them and why?
I've seen that question somewhere on the boards, here's an answer for you.
First of, unlike planned, I have NOT contacted any of the Protoype orderers yet. Sorry for that.
There are two reasons for that: I first wanted to make sure that enough prototypes are there for devs and second: I simply didn't have the time to write the needed informations for the preorderers.
I hope to find some time for that during GamesCom. But right now, only mainboards with bad wifi reception are available - so that's something you'd need to cope with.
But, as promised when you ordered, I will send you a fixed mainboard once they're available in case you still want one of those prototypes.
Now on to the devs.
The following members have a prototype:
Quite a nice setup of developers here
That state will the OS be when we deliver it?
I've seen this or a similar question on the boards somewhere.
Well, the answer is simple: Whatever state it will be in!
That's similar to how it worked with the Pandora.
We won't wait for some OS state when the hardware is finished and can be delivered.
Sure, it might not be polished, but since we're using an almost vanilla Debian, you'll have all the software you need.
Optimizing and improving the OS will still happen when we delivered the units - the same as it was with the Pandora.
Open and close... open and close... open... and...
While the LCD cables are finished and waiting for production, I haven't placed the order yet.
Why? Well, production time is 15 days whereas the mainboards will take 5 weeks.
So we're not that much in a hurry to order the LCD cables right away.
Instead, I'm using the additional time to stress the LCD Cable.
That means: Whenever I'm at home, watching a movie with my wife or similar, I'm opening... and closing... and opening... the lid. Over and over again.
Right now, I've opened and closed it about 8000 - 10000 times and it still is working fine.
I will continue doing this - until the time has come to order the cables!
GamesCom 2017
In about 1,5 weeks, GamesCom will start in Germany!
Of course we'll be there with a Pyra - and ptitSeb will be there as well (I think from Thursday on).
So if you're there, come over to hall 10.2 to our booth, play around with the nigh-finished Pyra, have some coffee, chat with me.
And as mentioned: If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask them here!
Sorry (once again) for the delay. I haven't had a free day for the last two weeks... and it won't happen until after GamesCom as well.
You might've also noticed I wasn't visiting the boards or IRC a lot - I'm not hiding, I'm just overwhelmed with things to do.
I even tried to do a newspost multiple times last week but literally fell asleep on top of the keyboard.
Anyways, you all deserve an update!
I'll also try to answer some questions I've seen here at the boards, but if I missed some or you have some more, let me know here at the thread and I'll try to answer them ASAP.
Okay, let's get started with some annoying news...
The cases
You probably guessed it: I didn't receive any final cases yet. If I did, I would've posted pics right away, you could be sure of that.
That would've been awesome!
According to FormAction, the material from the company in France hasn't arrived. Which sounds a bit like an excuse - they could've at least received enough for samples in that case.
Sadly, there's not much i can do right now (as August is the hottest month in Greece and no one is working there right now), but at least I'm planning the next steps with my contact.
We're currently evaluating to move the molds to a different production company. It's just round the corner, so the molds could be transported there within a day or two.
The company is Uniqueplast, and we've worked with them already (they're producing my SNES, N64, MegaDrive and NES shells).
They would've been the first choice of my contact as well, but they're more production based, they don't really do designs (except for simple ones, but the Pyra is anything but simple!)
Productionwise, they're a lot more advanced though, they've got 14 modern mold-injection machines (which means they could produce all cases easily within one day!).
Whenever I ordered 1000 of the above mentioned shells, I received them within 1 - 2 weeks.
So, we've already given them a Pyra case and are waiting for a quotation. If nothing really happens at FormAction within the first 1 - 2 weeks in September, then it's very probable we move.
This is REALLY annoying (why is it always the case? It was the same issue with the Pandora... and here we thought moving to a European company would make things easier...)
I'll keep you informed, but nothing will happen here until September.
So let's continue with better news, shall we?
The PCBs
I know it always seems nothing is happening here - mainly because there's nothing here that can be shown or seen.
But the last series of prototypes had still had a few issues and quirks left (nothing major though, thank god).
And all known majoe issues except for three have already been eliminated.
And one of those is not really an issue but needs some measurement with professional tools.
Those three are:
- 4GB RAM units freezing
- Really bad Wifi reception (which is what needs the measurements)
- Whirring noises when you connect something to USB or switch off the screen
Let's start with 1.:
Nikolaus tried a few things, but he can mostly do hardware design checks and these seem to be fine.
So it's time for an expert to step in - and luckily, there's someone who really knows everything OMAP: Tony Lindgren (the maintainer of the OMAP kernel).
He mentioned he already helped out with memory issues with other projects (and they even had a faulty memory chip design on one project - let's hope that's not our issue) and he just received a prototype last week.
Besides the memory issue, he'll also work on some other patches (like the OMAP5 hanging when we're doing a warm reboot).
So let's all hope that issue will be solved as well!
Once the 4GB works... we can already produce the CPU boards (they're waiting to be populated at GC!)
And Nr. 2.:
It's not an issue, but we're lacking the tools to professionally measure the trace from the Wifi chip to the antenna.
HF is a very complex and delicate issue - if it's not 100% correct, you lose reception quite a lot.
Luckily, Nikolaus knows an expert in that area who also has the tools needed available.
He didn't have the time until now, but will have a timeslot ready end of August.
Nikolaus prepared a special PCB for the measurements. Once they've been done, another PCB will be made with the suggested changes and to confirm them.
Production time for those is only about a week, as these are simple PCBs with only the stuff needed for testing the reception onto them.
Nr. 3:
This is a bit tricky. Whenever you connect something to the USB Host port, you can hear the Pyra make sirring noises.
Everything works fine, but this is a bit annoying.
This often can be a coil, but we've replaced the one responsible for the USB port with different ones (all with the same value though), but that didn't help.
It's pretty hard locating the part that sirrs... once we managed to do that, a fix would probably be easy. But locating is isn't.
If there's any hardware expert here (or if you know one) who has some additional ideas how to locate the part: Please let me know
When that has been done... well, I guess there's nothing left to do here, so we can produce the mainboards as well!
Let's move to...
The Prototypes - who received them and why?
I've seen that question somewhere on the boards, here's an answer for you.
First of, unlike planned, I have NOT contacted any of the Protoype orderers yet. Sorry for that.
There are two reasons for that: I first wanted to make sure that enough prototypes are there for devs and second: I simply didn't have the time to write the needed informations for the preorderers.
I hope to find some time for that during GamesCom. But right now, only mainboards with bad wifi reception are available - so that's something you'd need to cope with.
But, as promised when you ordered, I will send you a fixed mainboard once they're available in case you still want one of those prototypes.
Now on to the devs.
The following members have a prototype:
- aTc: Working on the OS. He packages everything together and provides us the Debian packages as well as the rootfs. He also adds some fixes himself.
- notaz: He doesn't have as much time as with the Pandora, but he still tries to help out with some low-level fixes as well.
- zmatt: You probably know him best for getting the rotation on the Pyra to work without the rotator chip. He knows quite a bit about the OMAP and has also discovered most of the hardware issues with ideas how to fix them.
- ptitSeb: Who doesn't know him here? He's working on various ports for the Pyra.
- sebt3: Also a well-known member here. He is working on things like a proper touchscreen calibrator, the volume wheel daemon and similar helpers.
- Tony Lindgren: Introduced above, an expert with OMAP-things. Currently working on analyzing the 4GB RAM issue, but he's also helping fixing other small quirks we still have with our setup.
- Askarus: He's working on a proper default setup for the desktop environment suited for Pyras screen as well as on scripts that are being binded to keyboard shortcuts (to increase or decrease brightness, etc.)
- SneHebNor: He has only been lent a prototype for a short period of time, as he was visiting the DebConf in Montreal. So yes, we had a Pyra prototype over at the DebConf (Debian Conference) this year
Quite a nice setup of developers here
That state will the OS be when we deliver it?
I've seen this or a similar question on the boards somewhere.
Well, the answer is simple: Whatever state it will be in!
That's similar to how it worked with the Pandora.
We won't wait for some OS state when the hardware is finished and can be delivered.
Sure, it might not be polished, but since we're using an almost vanilla Debian, you'll have all the software you need.
Optimizing and improving the OS will still happen when we delivered the units - the same as it was with the Pandora.
Open and close... open and close... open... and...
While the LCD cables are finished and waiting for production, I haven't placed the order yet.
Why? Well, production time is 15 days whereas the mainboards will take 5 weeks.
So we're not that much in a hurry to order the LCD cables right away.
Instead, I'm using the additional time to stress the LCD Cable.
That means: Whenever I'm at home, watching a movie with my wife or similar, I'm opening... and closing... and opening... the lid. Over and over again.
Right now, I've opened and closed it about 8000 - 10000 times and it still is working fine.
I will continue doing this - until the time has come to order the cables!
GamesCom 2017
In about 1,5 weeks, GamesCom will start in Germany!
Of course we'll be there with a Pyra - and ptitSeb will be there as well (I think from Thursday on).
So if you're there, come over to hall 10.2 to our booth, play around with the nigh-finished Pyra, have some coffee, chat with me.
And as mentioned: If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask them here!
