Quotes Thread For The Blog

[mali]

(Photo from the Texas factory)

I've probably missed someone else posting this, but it seems pretty important (and probably Pandora related - cases?): http://twitpic.com/1ee7h3

Speculate away!

It's all the parts apart from the cases.

 

[Mithrildor]

http://twitter.com/_mfk/statuses/11934148999 :

http://picasaweb.google.com/mfk.pandora/LifeInColor?feat=directlink#

 

[mali]

(case colour)

Besides, an option for pink means there's a good chance for an option of any other colour.

It's painted so I suppose there is a standard colour palette available to choose from

We won't be doing anything but black for now, changing the paint colour means changing the plastic colour under it (chipping would be an issue if we didn't).

But you can see in those photos how smooth the top part is, those marks on the non-painted version make it look as if it isn't.

(Pink Pandora)

Michael is going to put the pink one on ebay when he gets it.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

ED Twitter-

Just created a new startup/shutdown-script that will save and restore the Gamma and Brightness-Settings of the LCD.

http://twitter.com/EvilDragon1717/statuses/12021575205

 

[Alpha2]

EvilDragon1717 And another new script: A small user manager that lets you remove and add new users to the system.

EvilDragon1717 Okay, enough Pandora-Hacking for today (it's 5:30 am here...) Time to write a new blog post tomorrow and update the status page... 'night!

EvilDragon1717 Created another script: A LCD Gamma-Manager. You can create, save and load gamma profiles. Sonic looks cool with TV CRT simulation settings!

(///Psst, Magic Sam no commenting in this thread, there's a thread for the Quotes so that we dont bog this one down.///)

 

[Prometheus]

ED's new blog post;

Here we go with the latest updates for the hungry masses!
First, my apologies for not updating the site a lot. That WiFi issue really did wear me out, I wasn't able to do much during that time. We all were a bit demotivated, but now that WiFi's working, we've recovered and are working fullspeed ahead!
Sorry for that, but after all, we're only human beings, too... and after years of constant work on the Pandora and our normal jobs... well, things can get a bit hard.



1. The hardware

Michael has finished working on WiFi and did manage to get it working quite well. Stable websurfing at about 500 KB/s. He tried webbrowsing, streaming music, etc.
This put our minds on ease, we really were quite scared when we found out about WiFi.
We now got FULLY WORKING HARDWARE, as we got drivers for EVERY component!

As can be seen on this picture, there's a lot of boxes shipping to UK. Some might go to Turkey, as Fatih got hold of a company who usually does laptop repairs, and they might help to fix the WiFi on the already produced 700 boards to speed things up a bit.

Boxes full of Boards and LCDs
Boxes full of B...
Boxes full of Boards and LCDs Boxes full of Boards and LCDs

This whole WiFi issue did throw as back a few weeks - but I hope you all do agree it's better we took the two weeks finding out what the problem was. Otherwise, you would've been gotten Pandoras with broken WiFi... not a good idea, if you ask me.
This seemed to happen for a big, well-known company whose latest product has serious WiFi issues (and WiFi working much worse than ours...)
We rather ship you something working - even if it did delay things by two or three more weeks!


2. The cases

While Michael was working on WiFi, the Chinese were working on increasing the case quality.
And we really do think it was worth the extra time - especially the final one that has some paint added looks spot-on!
Way better than anything we've seen before!

color1
color1
color1 color1

Just compare that to an older version of the case...

DSC07222
DSC07222
DSC07222 DSC07222

Was it worth it? That's up to decide for yourself. We sure do think so.

Unfortunately, adding paint did lead to one thing that has to be done: As it makes the case a bit thicker, Michael needs to approve that case and therefore is waiting for a sample.
To speed production up, Fatih will visit the company in China if necessary to make sure they won't mess around more but start shipping!
They still have a few days to ship, as applying the WiFi fix to the boards will take a while.

One thing that might interest you: You might have seen that they also painted a pink version of the Pandora... Michael will most probably put a Rev 4 board in and sell it on eBay soon!
Yep, that Prototype will probably be out shortly before we assemble and ship!

color21
color21
color21 color21

So if you want to own this case, keep your eyes on our blog!

Oh, some might think Painting is cheating... well, not really.
A lot of companies actually do it that way - and it doesn't wear off. Remember the old Nintendo DS? Not the DS Lite, but the old silvergrey one? I got one. Never had a carry case, it's really scratched (even the LCD is scratched).
But only on one corner it can be seen it's painted - and only because the base plastic color was white.
So black with black won't wear off - don't worry. It will simply LOOK better.


3. The software

I'm currently doing a lot of neat scripts while DJWillis prepare the image for the NAND.
Today I did create an LCD Gamma Manager - a small tool where you can create, load and save various LCD Gamma settings. I also created one that looks like an old CRT TV. Really cool - emulation on a handheld has never looked better!
To check out what's happening on the OS, simply go to http://git.openpandora.org

As Midori was a bit unstable and FireFox eating up RAM, we changed browsers once again. Arora is now included in the OS. Fast, without any rendering issues and it didn't crash yet for me.
The OS is getting more and more complete.


That's it for now - as soon as I know any more information (shipping dates for the cases, dates when we all meet in England, etc.), I'll inform you!
And sorry to my German readers: I'll translate the post tomorrow, it's 5:50 am now, I want to go to bed...

Sorry for not preserving the bolded text. The original is here.

EDIT: Another quote relating to the above.

Geez, I'm sick of these blog posts with suggestions as fact. Nothing is going to Turkey. Fatih suggested it. ED promoted it. Craig shot it down. End of story. Thousands of dollars have been spent setting up the hall in England and more shipping means more delays, more cost and possibly more taxes. It was a nice idea to spare my sanity having to solder 800 boards (don't forget all those rev4s still ready for devs and the Press) but that is just how it has to be. I'll do what I have to do to get it done faster and that is the reality of my life for the past two years. After reading ED's blog post it doesn't look like he actually said anything other than suggesting things but it's not a fault of the forum to read something and not at least consider it to be the plan. It's not.

The parts from Texas are in the air already and they are going to England. The cases will be shipped on Saturday April 17th (unpainted) or on Tuesday April 20th (painted). Silk screening would mean shipping them on Friday April 23rd and we saw more samples that were a bit better but still not great. Why is that so hard to do? Why haven't they made thousands yet? It baffles me too but from what I hear, they know we are unhappy and keep trying to impress us to no end...and it isn't happening although I have to say seeing the painted cases was the first time I started to feel like this could actually work. I'm pretty picky and perhaps more so than many forumers but I just want a professional product. We'll see what we get in the end. We actually never asked them to keep trying things like they have done. They've just sort of forced that on us by never having anything ready to ship. I'm not sure ED really understood that from Fatih and saying we told them to keep taking their time making it perfect is so not true. It was more like "well, um, if you think that is best...I guess we have a wifi issue we could work on while these delays happen".

The current problem with the painting idea is that they need to take a PCB I sent them and put a painted unit together to be sure that tolerances still exist. Unlike those pictures you have seen of the black and pink one, doing thousands will be done in a professional and dust free environment should we chose to do that. A few extra days while we prepare other stuff like opening up boxes and soldering resistors? Hmmn, it might actually be worth it.

I asked Fatih to ask them about the durability of the paint. Yes, I go through Fatih again because going direct seems to go no where these days. They answer to the one making the purchase orders. He said they tried applying stickers and scratching the paint with a knife and were happy with the test results. I mentioned that we were more interested in more general rubbing and finger grease/salts. I also asked him to find out exactly what kind of paint they will use so we can research its durability. If this all gets done before Friday, no time will be lost since I guess they are still building final cases themselves this week. Can I get a collective: WTF? I hear ya.

So the deal is still that I fly to England as soon as I know those cases have taken off. I will make sure the hall is prepared as I want it and maybe double check the wiring to be sure stations are properly grounded. Craig and I will go through the boxes from Texas and be sure it is all there and okay. I'm also going to ship lots of stuff from my own office here so that I am certain I have the tools I've used all along. I'll do the resistor mod while the cases are in the air and when they get there, we'll throw hundreds together immediately following that. As long as the case company can finally get it together this time, we can still start shipping these out to customers at the end of the month. That's the real plan.

Oh, I should also add that production of the remaining boards from the 4000 has been resumed. Once the wifi fix had been verified to make wireless transactions work and reliably so (maybe not at break neck speeds but I still think there is some software work to do as download rates are totally variable based on CPU speed), I emailed them to continue on with the part change as part of the remaining build process.


Michael

EDIT: Another one, about the cases;

So.. I'm slightly confused... are case samples that need approval shipping on the 17th/20th - or are a pallet with 1,000+ cases shipping on that date?

I may have answered you on the blog, but basically they are fully capable of assembling some test units there in China using the parts I sent ages ago and confirm the cases don't scrape parts or bulge out with everything inside. I have no reason to get cases here in Canada since I'm not going to use the cases to send to devs. They need to be boxed up and sent to England for real production now.

Those dates I listed are the days that they should be shipping large volumes to England, not samples.

 

[Mithrildor]

Pandora: The LCD Gamma Manager vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hehqmv5_c

 

[Qwertyuiop]

ED Twitter

The chinese company confirmed us the paint is lead free. We're still deciding whether to paint or not though. But it's good to know

Case update:

Since they didn't ship sample cases last weekend, I told them to assemble a unit themselves and make sure it fits. They did that and said it went together with no problems. They also still wanted to send me the samples so I said whatever and to ship them but they fit so we can just take the first 1000 cases without delay (other than any they fabricate from this point on). They have said over and over that these painted cases look very professional and we should be very pleased. They also said that with complicated molds like ours, painting is usually standard practice. They say they use a high quality, lead free paint that they claim has good scratch resistance properties.

A very important detail they told Fatih last night was that the paint is only applied to the outside of the case so all internal tolerances are unaffected which is great! That was my main concern anyway. My next concern was to make sure they don't paint inside the hinge hump edges so that when the lid is installed, it won't scrape back and forth. Fatih has been instructed to make sure they understand this but they are not idiots and they do know how this thing goes together. The main issue will be for them to make sure the paint facility crew knows this too.

About the silkscreen: Yes, three days is what they said it would take but the problem is that it might be wrong still. Then it is five days to send me samples to review, then three more days to try again, then five more days shipping....etc. The thing is that based on what we've seen, we're not so sure they will get it right and it could be a month before they do.

 

[Alpha2]

EvilDragon1717 Moved our scripts into an internal PND file, so that all GUs (minimenu and pmenu so far) can also make use of them.

 

[mali]

(FCC/CE clarification- one more time)

One more time: The CE Certification is a done by the company who produces / sells the device: In that case, us.
If we certificate it, it's fine. WE are the ones responsible for assuring it does pass CE. There is NO ONE else who can do a certification for you.

If you include a CE certification within your product, you are claiming you tested the device and made sure it is within all of the given CE specs.
If it's not the case and a test or some problems do reveal this, you are responsible for it.
The test basically is optional, but it would be madness selling a device telling it conforms the CE without testing it.

There is no such thing invalid CE certification.

No need to retest it, though, as the only critical thing that didn't pass EMV was the LCD cable, so it had to be shielded (very common problem with such devices).
That resistor doesn't change anything there, so I can assure you it's still within the specs.

As soon as we got enough money, we will go for a big test that includes ALL testing for everything needed worldwide, but that's VERY expensive.
Until then, we did what he had to do to sell it legally - do CE, as we are sitting in Europe.

Look, I told the certified (certified by the authorities in Germany!) lab multiple times it has WiFi.
And they confirmed me multiple times that CE doesn't care about WiFi.
Nevertheless, the big FCC test is still coming and planned as soon as we get the first mass produced devices (I also mentioned that a few times back then).

Unfortunately, for FCC, you have to wait for the first mass produced devices - which we will have in 1 - 2 weeks.
That means that the big test which will get us ALL certifications needed will probably ake place while we're assembling.

There are companies like TUEV Nord in Germany that are specialized on testing and getting all the certifications you need to sell it in whatever area you tell them.
Those tests do cost a LOT of money (approx. 10-20k EUR), therefore, we planned that testing as soon as we get the first mass produced units.

BTW: That resistor didn't change anything in the WiFi area. The WiFi chip was working well before, it reported a very good signal quality. And transmitting WiFi was ALWAYS working and didn't have anything to do with the resistor.
The only thing the resistor did change was the steepness of the curve for the module to sync the WiFi RECEPTION. The module was receiving everything, but it wasn't in sync with the board and therefore we had packet loss.

The WiFi RX / TX itself hasn't been changed by that resistor.

psssst... Spaceballs: Don't forget to make sure they are following the RoHS and WEEE regulations

We do

Okay, I just made some phonecalls. I couldn't get any official authorities who take care that everything conforms the CE on the phone yet, but will probably tomorrow (they're out of office already).
I reached some guys from testing labs though. They know that there was an application to expand the CE frequencies so that WiFi will also need CE. However, they were not sure when this expandation will become valid (it might even be valid). I sent an email to official authorities to send me more information about that.

I also talked to a few lawyers: As long as we don't sell WITHIN US, we're not responsible for FCC. The one who buys from us and IMPORTS the Pandora is responsible. The buyer makes the contract with us in EU, therefore the laws of EU are valid and no FCC is needed here.

Still we want to make the FCC certification so that you all can import it without any hazzles. But as that can only be done with a finished unit, we have to wait 1 - 2 weeks before we can do it.

We could also disable the WiFi module for the units we ship to USA and clearly state in the manual that you should not install any software that reenables it.

However, that's not what we want. We want a completely certified and approved Pandora, but that won't happen before we have some final units. But it's planned.

 

[Alpha2]

http://twitter.com/EvilDragon1717TWEET.

EvilDragon1717 50% of the case parts of the Pandora are produced already. So of some parts already exists 1000 pcs and the rest is in production. Woot!

http://twitter.com/EvilDragon1717/status/12227075932

 

[Prometheus]

Hot off the presses.

There's a big box of test cases arriving with me tomorrow afternoon (according to UPS at this very moment, subject to change, all rights reserved, patent pending, copyright 2010, we reserve the right to change at any time, your mileage may vary, items may be larger than they appear).

I have no idea if the pink one will be in there. It's a bigger shipment though: 1.40Kgs. Should be several cases and I know there will be painted and painted + silk screened cases in there.

 

[Fishbong]

Painted and silkscreened?

 

[mali]

(Volcano)

UPS are using this as an excuse for them delivering nothing this week. It has apparently totally stalled all their operations.

 

[Prometheus]

Regarding the recent painted production sample photos;

It fits together great and actually passes Michaels QC.

They did paint the controls on the grey one, but we won't be going with that, or with painting the controls.

 

[michaeljustman]

[quote name='craigix on twitter' date=' timestamp=' post=']
That volcano has brought all Pandora and iControlPad shipments to a standstill. A bloody volcano is the latest delay, crazy.
[/quote]

 

[Prometheus]

Stuff about the current status of all the stuff that's in transit;

I don't think the volcano cutting off air traffic has too much to do with it.

Craig mentioned that the boards should have been in the air, but were not.
The cases were not sent when they were supposed to be (prior to the volcano).

Edit: It could not mean that they did not ship - but it's vague, I'll take it as they're still in Dallas.

From what I understood the parts heading from the US to England were already in air before the volcano erupted, did they make it?

I thought they were on a direct flight from Dallas to UK, but it seems not.

The boards, LCDs, etc. were all picked up by UPS a while ago but looks like they didn't make it to UK before the volcano eruption.
UPS is currently sorting out everything (you can imagine this caused a bit of chaos), the current receiving time is therefore unknown (at least for the next few days).

The cases are produced, now they are getting painted and then shipped.
Hopefully the volcano chaos is over until then so that the shipment will be quick.

I've left in the other quotes for context, here.

 

[mali]

New blog post by ED:

Ash-Gray

Did you know I can foresee the future?

I didn't know myself - but Mae (a user from the German Community) has found out that I actually predicted the volcanic eruption back when I held my presentation about OpenSource handhelds...

Go check it out yourself, it starts at about 4:20:
.
The lottery numbers for next week are: 3, 17, 23, 35, 45, 49 and 22. Don't bet on it, though!


Okay, now for some real news:

As you probably already found out, there was a volcanic eruption in Iceland which caused chaos to the european air traffic. No flights are currently going to and from UK. As the boards in Dallas were already picked up last week, we hoped that they were already in UK, maybe sitting at the customs, when that all happened.
Well, unfortunately, that was not the case. They didn't go on a direct flight from Dallas to UK, but were routed via some other airport in USA. And that's where they are still waiting for the moment. I guess 1t shipments do not go the same routes a small packages

UPS is currently rerouting their shipments, we don't have an update yet when the boards will arrive, but I'm sure UPS is working as fast as possible to get it all sorted out. The production of the remaining boards is still going on, of course.

Next, onto the cases:

Since the volcanic eruption gave us some more time, we decided to tweak the cases some mor.... naaaah! Just kidding!

The first 1000 cases have been fully produced and will be painted black! Why? Heck, because it's worth it! Just check the following picture:



Left: Unpainted. Right: Black Painted. Bottom: Ash Grey Painted.


Definately looking beautiful. Want more? Well, here you go:



Left: Black Paint. Right: Grey Paint.

I'll let you know as soon a we get more information from UPS on when the shipping will continue. As long as the cases aren't finished painting, we won't have lost any time due to the volcano. Let's just hope it REALLY decides to stop spitting ash into the air and the delivery services will catch up with the lost days soon!

http://www.open-pandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=2&lang=en

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Cases-

Hi Ed, Is the mould factory still planning to ship out or at least be prepared to ship by tommorow the 1000 case order? The 20th was due to be the completion day right? I'm sure the order can be shipped from China, and then sorted out by what ever delivery service is used in regards to the valcano situation!

I don't know if they will be shipped tomorrow - I'm not sure any delivery service picks up goods that go to UK at the moment until they catched up.

Also, has anyone said if the remaing 3000 cases have been approved to start production, or does the the team still plan to wait until the first thousand arrive to confirm quality? Just wondering!

We're still waiting, as we'll need more time to produce the first 1000 than the production of the rest of the cases will take.

ED Twitter:

Finished a Startup-Manager: Now you can enable / disable WiFi on boot, enable / disable Autologin, select default user, default GUI

 

[Mithrildor]

http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=9408&p=120620#p120620 :

Ja, laut UPS dauert es ca. 1 - 2 Wochen, bis wieder Normalbetrieb herrscht. Bis dahin können wir in China nichts abholen lassen und auch die Boards kommen wohl erst nächste Woche an.

Google translate:

Yes, according to UPS, it takes about 1 - 2 weeks, until there is normal again. Until then, we can not pick up in China and the boards are probably on next week.

http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=9305&p=120536#p120536 :

Ein User hier hat mal netterweise einen WLAN-Test mit iPhone und Nokia N900 gemacht:

Download-Raten:
iPhone: ca. bis zu 1,2MB/s
Nokia N900: ca. bis zu 750KB/s

750KB/s hat notaz auch schon in einem minimalen Kernel hinbekommen.
Am Treiber kann auch noch viel gemacht werden. notaz hat inzwischen auch den Powersaving-Modus laufen, da gab es einen SDIO-Kommunikationsfehler.
An Software läßt sich also noch schrauben.

Interessant ist, dass sich das N900 in einem Punkt wie die Pandora verhält:
Unter SCP bleibt die Transferrate stabil oben, mit WGET fängt sie hoch an und sinkt teilweise bis 250KB/s ab.

Scheint ein WGET-Problem zu sein.

Google translate:

A user has kindly here once a Wi-Fi test with iPhone and Nokia N900 made:

Download rates:
iPhone: approximately up to 1.2 MB / s
Nokia N900: up to about 750KB / s

750KB / s notaz hinbekommen even in a minimal kernel.
On the driver can also be made much more. notaz now also the Power Saving mode is running, there was a communication error SDIO.
Of software can thus be screwed yet.

It is interesting that the N900 behaves in a point such as the Pandora:
Under the SCP remains stable transfer above, with WGET she starts high and falls partly on to 250KB / s.