Production Pyra photos/videos/thoughts thread

[daveshah]

With the first production Pyra now in my hands it is time for some photos.

First of all, the rather unassuming box (because ED hasn't got the real ones yet)



I went for the dark chrome colour, which looks great IRL, I'd say these photos capture it quite well:





This is using the SD card ED included which has a non-TILER kernel. I had an SD card prepared with the latest kernel but it doesn't seem to boot, I must have misunderstood how the OMAP boot process works (or it just doesn't like that card for some reason...). Once that's working I'll try and get some more photos (might end up being tomorrow).

First impressions are of a device much sturdier than the Pandora - I have only had a second hand Pandora so maybe they were better new, but things like the hinge, plastics and nubs all look and feel a lot more professional on the Pyra.

 

[Grench]

So - rotation is turned off in the new OS build?

Congratulations on being the first owner of a production Pyra!

 

[daveshah]

So - rotation is turned off in the new OS build?

Yeah, the last image is using a 5.5 kernel without TILER support.

 

[rSl]

Congratulations on being the first owner of a production Pyra!

second that. it's happening!
have fun!

 

[daveshah]

Managed to get my SD card working with a bit of dd and fdisk magic (I think gparted had previously overwritten the OMAP boot stuff).

And the TILER kernel and GC320-accelerated X11 does work!



Note that ED claimed this LCD was defective due to high light bleed, but I've seen fairly expensive commercial products with much worse (there is slightly more IRL than in the picture). So I would say ED's QC standards are quite high

 

[daveshah]

And 3D and X11 works!


(not going to win any cinematography or Extreme Tux Racer awards though )

 

[crazyhorse]

Thanks for your work and the videos/pictures.What are you working on next? can you show an emulator running?

 

[sm0kew0n]

Congrats @daveshah

Is it my imagination or is the esc key a bit stuck in that last keyboard image?

Have fun, can't wait to receive my own!

 

[daveshah]

Thanks for your work and the videos/pictures.What are you working on next? can you show an emulator running?

I was hoping to try my RetroArch port that was working on the uEVM but there seems to be some kind of freeze issue that I need to look into - it might just be that the battery needs charging though.

Congrats @daveshah

Is it my imagination or is the esc key a bit stuck in that last keyboard image?

Have fun, can't wait to receive my own!

No, I can see what you mean but I think its just a tiny bit of rotation combined with a trick of the light. It's definitely not actually any lower than any other keys.

 

[Nintendo]

So awesome~ Congrats, mate

 

[daveshah]

The cause of the freezes seemed to be a weak USB port, using a proper 2A charger and Pyra is rock solid so far (and actually charging the battery)

Here is a very brief look at PCSX ReARMed in RetroArch (I'll do some better videos over the coming weeks, once the software is in a better place).

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Amazing! It's so great to see 3D working too

 

[levi]

The cause of the freezes seemed to be a weak USB port,

Not physically weak, I hope. I recall bad stories about Nokia phones where the microUSB port falls off and knackers the phone. I'm reading 'weak' as something more like 'underpowered', right?

 

[daveshah]

Yes, I was trying to charge the battery which I think was quite low from a computer USB port and that was upsetting it.

The charging stuff isn't quite there yet in general so this can all definitely be improved.

 

[levi]

Still, it's curious to know how a low (but not critically) battery would cause freeze in graphical software. Perhaps the governor is limiting the clocks when battery is low to eke out the remaining time, but the Pandora didn't do that. I don't know what Debian's default governor is.

 

[daveshah]

It wasn't just the emulator, it was the whole system that froze, probably because the voltage dipped too low.

 

[levi]

But the backlight stayed on as did the screen data? That's unusual, but not impossible I guess, if the battery did just cross it's critical level. Probably would be better if the system critical level was raised a little from that point, such that it would shutdown gracefully before it got that low.

 

[daveshah]

Yeah, the entire battery management situation is a bit ropey at the moment, as the newer kernel doesn't have ToastBucket's fixes. There are also two different battery devices being reported with significantly different states of charge.

 

[Grench]

That was quick! How is Suprtux 2 playing on it?

I wonder how long it will take to get from above working example to an easily downloadable image.

 

[TeDaDeS]

It always nice to get these kind of updates, thanks!