Pandora support after the Pyra

[Da Dude]

Hey,

Maybe i'm overconcerned about this, but will there still be support on the Pandora when the Pyra arrives?

Or will this be all over.

I think about broken nubs or other parts, and software updates?

Is there any news in this?

THX

 

[TrashyMG]

Outside of Hardware, The software even the OS itself have been all supported by the members here in the community, I doubt that is going away any time soon. 

edit: Or should I say it won't disappear overnight. 

 

[ekianjo]

edit: Or should I say it won't disappear overnight. 

Indeed, but you should expect diminished activity on the Pandora once everyone starts getting a Pyra around here.  

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, porting games to the Pandora and Pyra will be very similar, so I guess if someone codes or ports a game for the Pyra, it will appear on the Pandora as well (as long as it's fast enough for it).


I will keep selling all hardware stuff as long as I have it. LCD Cables are in production right now, Nubs are not available anymore (and the ones I salvage are from defect PCBs), but cases, etc. shouldn't be an issue.


Also, existing software won't disappear (I still even offer the old GP32 stuff on my site).

 

[rohezal]

LCD Cables are in production right now

Do you have some lying around to fix RMA Pandoras?

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Well, porting games to the Pandora and Pyra will be very similar, so I guess if someone codes or ports a game for the Pyra, it will appear on the Pandora as well (as long as it's fast enough for it).


I will keep selling all hardware stuff as long as I have it. LCD Cables are in production right now, Nubs are not available anymore (and the ones I salvage are from defect PCBs), but cases, etc. shouldn't be an issue.


Also, existing software won't disappear (I still even offer the old GP32 stuff on my site).

After Pyra release and everyone gets a Pyra in two months, I believe there are still a lot of love left for the Pandora (I do and I still will after getting myself a Pyra).  Pandora runs so many stuff so goodly, so I won't let it go anywhere anytime soon.

One suggestion:  Now that IDV has given up on his aluminum case quest, you may want to think about producing Pandora cases with much stronger plastic and in different colors.  I'm sure you will sell truckloads of those as everyone who has a Pandora wants a new stronger case and different colors.  I do...

 

[ekianjo]

Shenmue, you dont produce plastic cases in the hundreds.

 

[ekianjo]

Well, porting games to the Pandora and Pyra will be very similar, so I guess if someone codes or ports a game for the Pyra, it will appear on the Pandora as well (as long as it's fast enough for it).

Problem is always the same. Time. Having the Pyra in the mix will mean less time spent on the Pandora, and you can be sure that its not just about compiling stuff. Look at how much work Ptitseb does to fix almost every single port he releases. That just wont happen if he has as much work to do on the Pyra side.

 

[EvilDragon]

Ptibseb spends so much time as he does no 'normal' ports. He takes normal OpenGL stuff for example and adds fixes so everything will work with glshim.


However, once that work has been done, the difference between Pandora and Pyra should be mostly a recompile, nothing more.

LCD Cables are in production right now

Do you have some lying around to fix RMA Pandoras?

Yes.

 

[ekianjo]

the difference between Pandora and Pyra should be mostly a recompile, nothing more.

I'm not talking about simple recompilation, I'm talking about bug fixing. Check for Xash3D - just finding the bugs was very time consuming. If the bugs are not the same on a Pyra version vs a Pandora version, you know which one is going to get the priority... 

Plus the OS libraries and drivers will not be of the same nature on Pandora (Angstrom) vs Pyra (Debian), so you should expect some different results in certain cases. I think it's not as straightforward as you think. Even GLshim does not work exactly as expected on Pandora because of SGX driver bugs (some ports need specific SGX versions because of that). 

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Shenmue, you dont produce plastic cases in the hundreds.

I hope some day ED proves you wrong  

 

[ekianjo]

Shenmue, you dont produce plastic cases in the hundreds.

I hope some day ED proves you wrong

Oh sure, he can prove me wrong but it's going to be so expensive he won't want to do it anyway. You know you need an industrial mold to do plastic cases? And that kind of stuff needs 3 months development, and costs several hundred of thousands of dollars? Who's going to pay for that?

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Shenmue, you dont produce plastic cases in the hundreds.

I hope some day ED proves you wrong

Oh sure, he can prove me wrong but it's going to be so expensive he won't want to do it anyway. You know you need an industrial mold to do plastic cases? And that kind of stuff needs 3 months development, and costs several hundred of thousands of dollars? Who's going to pay for that?

Can't he just use the same mold that makes the Pandora case all these years?  Why new mold?  

 

[ekianjo]

Can't he just use the same mold that makes the Pandora case all these years?  Why new mold?  

You said you wanted something stronger ?

If you need it to be stronger, it means the design needs to be adjusted, because the current Pandora case has some obvious structural issues in its design. You can't just replace it by a different polymer mix and hope that it will solve all the structural issues by magic.

Adjusted design -> new mold needed.

 

[EvilDragon]

I think he meant just using a different (better) type of plastic, which might even be possible. Well, if the MOQ wouldn't be 10,000pcs anyways

 

[ekianjo]

Well, if the MOQ wouldn't be 10,000pcs anyways

Yeah, that's usually the issue, you can't make low production numbers (inherent to mold-type productions) usually. The only way to run low production numbers is when you use pilot molds (i.e. non final ones) for prototyping purposes, but then the plastic quality is far being being the same.   

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

I think he meant just using a different (better) type of plastic

Exactly.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

You said you wanted something stronger ?

If you need it to be stronger, it means the design needs to be adjusted, because the current Pandora case has some obvious structural issues in its design. You can't just replace it by a different polymer mix and hope that it will solve all the structural issues by magic.

Adjusted design -> new mold needed.

Structurally, the current design is fine.  It just needs better plastic.

 

[ekianjo]

Mold design also depends on the thermoplasticity of the polymer you inject so you cannot put massively different plastic in the exact same mold.