Quick update and summary

[CommanderB]

Thanks a lot for the update
Hopefully we can close the case of the case

How is @hns 's stationary Pyra devboard coming along? If devs had it in their hands they could maybe already work on the software without requiring a case. Also, more software could be ported to Pyra and be available for its launch

 

[asimov-solensan]

@EvilDragon, regarding software. What are the minimum features you want before shipping prepreorders?

I mean, is it in your plans to ship units without a working gpu or wifi or sleep mode .... I remark, from a software standpoint.

 

[rSl]

thanks for not dying ed!

tip: as you are adapting to the amount of caffeine you ingest, you just have to increase the dosage.

personally, to not get ill when doing this, i switched to drinking mainly tea to stay awake.
coffee is awesome, but it powers out quickly after boosting. good tea lasts a lot longer for beeing activated and gives more of
this feel-good effect for me now. and it saves the stomach too.

the key is to get "the right tea" for this purpose. lots of tips/buds and some leafs is a good ratio to feel good and be activated.
the buds have mainly the l-theanine* that makes you happy and the leaves are adding the much needed caffeine to the mix.
but don't buy the cheap "tea" from the supermarket, it's not worth it imho.

currently i'm verry happy with all the stuff from gruentee-direkt.de.
my favs
- Yueer Bai Zhu (white tea balls made by budhist monks in fuding/china: put one ball in cup, add nearly cooking water, let steep for around 15 (!) minutes, drink, repeat letting it steep 20 mins... yummieee)
- Lu Zhen (yunnan green tea picked from wild old tea trees, awesome loooong flav!)
all the other teas from them are top notch too and verry well priced for the quality. (and i'm not affiliated with 'em...)
try it, you will not regret it, i'm sure.

* wikipedia says: Theanine - Able to cross the blood–brain barrier, theanine has reported psychoactive properties. Theanine has been studied for its potential ability to reduce mental and physical stress, improve cognition, and boost mood and cognitive performance in a synergistic manner with caffeine.

 

[Grench]

But yes, I am pretty sure it's a lot more fun once I receive cases that I do NOT need to tweak around to get them working properly

It'll manage that, I don't have any worries about that.

Getting the first one 'just so' will probably be the most difficult. I suspect the challenge will center around the need to invent the proper method for getting the boards & shoulders to line up right while stabilizing the mainboard. Using the matchbook under a table leg analogy - shim it until it stops wobbling...

Figuring out how long the pins should be where on the main case moulds...
I just had an idea for getting those measurements inside the case so you can know how tall to make the pins A 'negative mold' of what the post-assembly inside of a Pyra looks like could be handy... Assemble one 'properly' with one of the bad/burner boards and case plastics with the inside surfaces lightly sprayed with cooking oil. Then fill it with expansion foam - might have to hold the thing together in a vise. But - once the foam sets and the case/mold is opened - that would be a depth-measurable 3D model of the void inside of a Pyra that could show what the pin length should be? OK, not necessarily a 'good' idea, but it might work?
[doublepost=1549581502,1549580344][/doublepost]

@EvilDragon, regarding software. What are the minimum features you want before shipping prepreorders?

I mean, is it in your plans to ship units without a working gpu or wifi or sleep mode .... I remark, from a software standpoint.

There might need be a distinction between what he is working on now (8 prototype pre-pre-orders and N developer units) and the ~200 pre-pre-orders (next in line) and the ~800 pre-orders and regular production/stock.

The prototype pre-pre-orders and developers go into this knowing that a lot of the software features will probably still be 'in development'. But - the software situation should improve through time.

For example, I understand that the GPU is working and tested, but there is a software piece that needs to be developed properly to enable the combination of rotation and 3D. Rotation works in 2D, 3D works in portrait - combining the two still needs some finessing but each mode is purported to work.

WiFi - I was under the impression this was already working and tested on the current board batch? The earliest boards had issues around on-board antenna design. I think ED said at one point that those were solved and it was working well.

Sleep mode - there is a magnetic lid switch that the OS can see. I don't know that I would actually want this to put the unit to sleep in the traditional laptop version of suspend to disk sleep. Maybe a 'low power mode' where the mobile data still runs and audio out still runs, shoulder buttons & volume still work, but the screen can be off? Others might want different features on/off in that kind of mode. Others might want a powersave mode that isn't quite 'sleep'. Others might want a true suspend to disk (unlikely). The whole thing should cold boot pretty quick - so some will want it to just power down cleanly when the lid closes. Building the software interface to take those into account is likely going to involve a community member developer to build it out then publish their 'flexible power' Pyra application somewhere or get it added to a Pyra add on pack - as that isn't likely to go upstream to Debian very quickly.

 

[dfkman]

Q4 2019. Calling it now.

 

[elvissteinjr]

On the topic of the lid... could the lid state also be exposed as a key for easy querying?

Doing that on the Pandora is kinda awkward, at least with what I found. That being the op_lidstate, which takes a little time to execute so not great for polling all the time. There's probably a direct way, but I failed to find the source code for that particular executable or any documentation regarding that.

 

[levi]

For example, I understand that the GPU is working and tested, but there is a software piece that needs to be developed properly to enable the combination of rotation and 3D. Rotation works in 2D, 3D works in portrait - combining the two still needs some finessing but each mode is purported to work.

3d only works in portrait on a specific old kernel I suspect, where the work has been done to get it to work, which predates getting tiler rotation working. Theoretically, once units are looking likely to ship, it might then be time to modify the open source wrapper the joins the kernel to the binary blob that controls the GPU for whatever specific version it looks likely the units will ship with.

Sleep mode - there is a magnetic lid switch that the OS can see. I don't know that I would actually want this to put the unit to sleep in the traditional laptop version of suspend to disk sleep. Maybe a 'low power mode' where the mobile data still runs and audio out still runs, shoulder buttons & volume still work, but the screen can be off? Others might want different features on/off in that kind of mode. Others might want a powersave mode that isn't quite 'sleep'. Others might want a true suspend to disk (unlikely). The whole thing should cold boot pretty quick - so some will want it to just power down cleanly when the lid closes. Building the software interface to take those into account is likely going to involve a community member developer to build it out then publish their 'flexible power' Pyra application somewhere or get it added to a Pyra add on pack - as that isn't likely to go upstream to Debian very quickly.

Suspend to disk seems quite plausible to me. You need at least the amount of RAM configured as swap to do that and there's a possibility it'll just start working. That said, I can't get my archlinux machines to do that even with a big swapfile, but I don't care enough to figure out what's wrong with it. Suspend to ram is fine for when I don't need to use the machine for a couple of hours, and it's connected to the mains.

You could configure the lid switch to initiate some kind of suspend but I never liked that option on my Pandora. I always had something playing audio on the headphone out, so just ramping back the maxiumum CPU GHz and blanking the screen and checking that bluetooth and wifi were off was enough for me. With the pyra having mobile optionality, I might expect a full suspend to be even less popular. On my arch machine, suspend to ram breaks wifi since I got a new router, which is a little frustrating. It's not hard to restart it, but it means switching the screen on (assuming it's wired in even), and crouching over a keyboard that's currently sitting on top of my hifi stack for the past couple of years, with the screen off 90 degrees to the keyboard.

 

[Grench]

I have considered carrying a strong magnet to trip the lid switch (super2 key) plus keypress to unlock it...

 

[hns]

Thanks a lot for the update
Hopefully we can close the case of the case

How is @hns 's stationary Pyra devboard coming along? If devs had it in their hands they could maybe already work on the software without requiring a case. Also, more software could be ported to Pyra and be available for its launch

It depends on producing the OMAP5 boards for the Pyra and therefore can only become available together with the first big Pyra production batch.

Anyways, I have taken this as the opportunity to offer it in my shop, so that you can already request one (voucher). This also helps me to estimate demand.

There will be 3 variants to choose from: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=Products&category=Modules

Minimal: 1xSD, HDMI, 2xUSB2 (one with SATA/USB3 option), FTDI compatible header for console
Standard: 2xSD, Headset Jack, HDMI, 2xUSB2 (one with SATA/USB3 option), µUSB3-OTG, FTDI compatible header for console, WLAN 2.4GHz, Bluetooth
Maximal: 2xSD, 1xµSD, Headset Jack, HDMI, 2xUSB2 (one with SATA/USB3 option), µUSB3-OTG, FTDI on board, Ethernet, WLAN 2.4GHz+5GHz, Bluetooth, BNO055, BME280

Please note that the OMPA5 board is not included and availability of variants (e.g. 2GB or 4GB) will be decided later.

 

[mati]

So the stationary boards are not produced because the Pyra is not produced.
And the Pyra is not produced because the cases are not produced.
Hmpf... it's always the cases, even if the device doesn't use them.

Bummer... early availability would have been a good reason to buy them.

 

[Grench]

It depends on producing the OMAP5 boards for the Pyra and therefore can only become available together with the first big Pyra production batch.

Anyways, I have taken this as the opportunity to offer it in my shop, so that you can already request one (voucher). This also helps me to estimate demand.

There will be 3 variants to choose from: http://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=Products&category=Modules

Minimal: 1xSD, HDMI, 2xUSB2 (one with SATA/USB3 option), FTDI compatible header for console
Standard: 2xSD, Headset Jack, HDMI, 2xUSB2 (one with SATA/USB3 option), µUSB3-OTG, FTDI compatible header for console, WLAN 2.4GHz, Bluetooth
Maximal: 2xSD, 1xµSD, Headset Jack, HDMI, 2xUSB2 (one with SATA/USB3 option), µUSB3-OTG, FTDI on board, Ethernet, WLAN 2.4GHz+5GHz, Bluetooth, BNO055, BME280

Please note that the OMPA5 board is not included and availability of variants (e.g. 2GB or 4GB) will be decided later.

Very cool. What did the exterior dimensions wind up being?

 

[pmprog]

It depends on producing the OMAP5 boards for the Pyra and therefore can only become available together with the first big Pyra production batch.

It's a shame the CPU board want produced already, because if the Pyra is going to be available at the same time, or at least near to, i would expect it kind of reduce the demand for this board, as people will probably opt for the full pyra. When it could have beena great dev platform to get software ready for the pyra

 

[ThinkPad]

OMG

135 EURO for the smallest one? NO CASE ?
Are you insane ?

Intel NUC from amazon.de is 130 EURO shipped !

 

[TrashyMG]

OMG

135 EURO for the smallest one? NO CASE ?
Are you insane ?

Intel NUC from amazon.de is 130 EURO shipped !

HNS is likely just charging the cost of design and manufacturing on a low volume production run... It's either going to be expensive or non-existent in this case.

It's by far cheaper than the official TI OMAP5 development board.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Intel is a much bigger company that can likely make them cheaper.

 

[Coupo]

That are some awsome news!
I hope to finish my school in december. So a Pyra on the end of the year, would be rearly great.

 

[hns]

Very cool. What did the exterior dimensions wind up being?

135 x 100 mm

 

[levi]

It's a shame the CPU board want produced already, because if the Pyra is going to be available at the same time, or at least near to, i would expect it kind of reduce the demand for this board, as people will probably opt for the full pyra. When it could have beena great dev platform to get software ready for the pyra

Indeed, I was considering getting something like this to make use of my old CPU board when I get round to upgrading my Pyra's CPU board to something more modern, so it's simply too early for me to consider something like this before I've even got the CPU board to put in it in the first place. And if there isn't a new CPU board for my Pyra, I could always just take the mainboard out of my Pyra and put that in some kind of case once the battery dies. The only thing these all give me over doing that is really just a physical ethernet socket, which isn't that valuable to me.

But in any case, I hope this is a success so that I can put in an order for one closer to my actually needing it.

 

[hns]

HNS is likely just charging the cost of design and manufacturing on a low volume production run... It's either going to be expensive or non-existent in this case..

Yes, it is calculated on low quantities. If we would build 1000 units (unlikely) you could expect the price to go down to 50%.

Intel is a much bigger company that can likely make them cheaper.

It is not a matter of "big company". The only thing that determines significantly is the number of customers. The more customers, the more units produced, the more components bought, which makes component cost go down. And the "one-time" cost (like production setup, shipment of components etc.) is distributed over more units.
There is of course a tiny effect of company size.. Because bigger companies are better known, they have more customers with less marketing efforts. And they can bundle some activities (this is why there are so man mergers and acquisitions of companies - it is cheaper).

So for this eval board, the price may be reduced if there are more orders.

 

[CommanderB]

Are there going to be pins for the connection of a fan? The OMAP5 can get quite hot and a devboard could give the opportunity to cool the CPU more efficiently than inside the Pyra

I think that 130€ for the low-end version is a really fair price especially, if you compare it to the price of the full Pyra. I can imagine that it does not even cover the development costs per unit.

In my opinion there should be an extra thread for the Pyra devboard - maybe the mods could split this thread?