Quotes Thread For The Blog

[Prometheus]

About UPS and such;

Today's update would still be 'still waiting to hear from UPS about the shipment'.

and what about the cases? they're all packaged up and waiting to ship too?

As far as I know they are going to arrive at about the same time - when that time will be I don't yet know, but I think UPS will be caught up by monday.

EDIT: An update;

It looks like we are going to get the delivery early next week if that volcano stays quiet.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Kick-Ass PND File-

And another today's update:
notaz sent me some kick-ass PND-File I MIGHT reveal soon. Or you need to wait a while longer. Let's see.

 

[Asiyura]

I'm in a state of absolute rage. UPS left all the Pandora boards outside at a neighboring business - anyone could have walked off with them.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

ED Twitter:

Thanks to notaz, we have a lot new nub settings. I also upgraded the Nub-Configmanager. Video should follow tomorrow.

 

[gruso]

Pic from Craig:

http://twitter.com/C...ses/12858200546
http://twitpic.com/1ijazx

 

[Lafazar]

Wartet MWeston nun mit seinem Flug, bis die Gehäuse in England angekommen sind oder ist er clever und fliegt bereits, sobald die Bestätigung kommt, dass alles auf dem Weg nach England ist. So könnte man etwas Zeit sparen und die Boards schon umlöten, wenn die Gehäuse noch unterwegs sind.

Er meinte zu mir, dass am 7. Mai alle Boards umgelötet sind und dann der Zusammenbau richtig losgeht.
Hat also wohl seinen Flug schon rausgesucht.

http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?p=121084#p121084

Is MWeston waiting with his flight until the cases have arrived in England, or is he clever and already flies as soon as the confirmation comes that everything is on its way to England. That way you could save time and start resoldering the boards while the cases are still underway. ;-)

He told me that all the boards will have been resoldered by the 7th of May and then assembly will start in earnest.
Looks like he picked his flight already.

 

[Prometheus]

A snippet regarding clock speed and whatnot;

If you overvolt it you void the warranty, the default OS does not allow overvolting.

I think Ed has been overseeing an overclock app which might ship with the OS.

EDIT: Just found this in the Beta Testing section, in a thread about testing the App Store;

There will probably be another round of appstore testing tonight. Put your name down here to take part.

Those of you who took part last time don't need to put your name down, just wait until I give the word on this thread that we are testing again.

I'm hoping to have V1.0 online this week as we intend to start shipping Pandora consoles from the 4th.

That last bit is sure to be of interest.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Case shipment:

Hey Craig, so the first 1000 cases are shipping out of China today or tommorow then?

Supposed to be picked up today.

Assembly estimates:

anyone have any idea how long it will take to make once they get used to it, are we talking 1 per hour 4 per hour I would guess about 12 per hour ( completely un educated guess)

We think it will be one per 4 minutes. That's a guess based on messing about with prototypes.

Batteries:

Today's challenge: Getting the batteries out of customs.

NAND Work

I've chased and chased those cases but the courier said the factory were unable to give weights or number of boxes last week.

Chasing that up with the factory just resulted in the usual apologies and more promises to sort it out.

Anyway, eventually Fatih spoke to someone higher up and they promised to get them all packaged and weighed correctly so the courier can collect them.

This just seems to be the 'way' with these Chinese companies, I've never had a good experience with one, it seems you have to go through this baptism of fire with them all. I just wish we could have found a company in the UK which we could afford to use. But alas it had to be China with our budget.

You have to understand they just lie and lie and lie to us. It may well be that the person telling the lies really believes them to be true because it is what he is told. Who knows. It's all smoke and mirrors constantly. This is just how they seem to do business.

Anyway the good news is that all the final case samples have been absolutely superb.

I'm also very glad these cases were the only thing done in China. The rumour that the PCBs were made in China isn't entirely true, the (American) PCB company had them made for us, and used a facility in Asia (which they may well own) for some of the work. We know no more about it than that. They were certainly populated and tested in Texas.

The decline of manufacturing in the west is all due to this smoke and mirrors Chinese crap. I bet most companies go though it, save very little money, but stick with it because they invested so much. It's one big long con by China.

If I can I'll move that case production to the west at the earliest possible opportunity because I'm not falling for it.

Lifetime of the moulds:

It's 100,000 to 1 million.

I doubt we will sell that many Pandoras.

Number of cases to be produced by the factory:

10,000.

Booting from the NAND:

Just installed the OS to the NAND. With the removal of some bootup-scripts, I can now boot in 30s. And there's still a lot to improve!

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Case shipping situation:

Pickup by UPS on May 7th.

On the 7th ?? lol

And to imagine Craig said he intended to ship the first pandora today !!

Well, that was when we were told everything is produced and painted.
Now they're actually painting right now...

 

[Prometheus]

Right, so, everything might be here on the 12th.

Interestingly there will be about 1500 completed boards - about 700 of which won't need the mod.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Power consumption video by MWeston:

Have a look:

.

More Power Info:

The 5V supply on the host port has been tested to be 91% efficient at 650mA (charging my Archos 605) and probably more like 93% efficient at smaller loads like 300-350mA (probably the most a 3G dongle would need?), but I'm just speculating and haven't really investigated it. From those numbers, you can get an idea of how battery life will be affected. I don't know if those USB 3G adapters use smart power management which would help it work even closer to an internal solution, power wise. Without any management, you could expect the battery life to be nearly cut in half.

I ran a couple of Quakes since I still have the ammeter setup. Placing in code block so my spacing is maintained:

Quake 2 - Lowest LCD brightness (a bit too low for actual gaming without some gamma adjustments) - ranged from 350 - 410mA
        - Maximum LCD brightness -  peaked at 530mA

Quake 3 - Lowest LCD brightness (Q3 is brighter so actually playable here)  - 370mA peak (lower than Q2 but probably because my build is screwy and it draws through walls in some spots)
        - Maximum LCD brightness - 500mA peak, usually around 470mA

Clocking:

@MWeston:
If you switch to 700MHz, nothing will immediately happen.
AFAIK, Linux and the OMAP scales. You set the MAX speed, but as long as the CPU usage isn't too high, the CPU won't clock to 700MHz. At least that's what I think - but I might be in error there .)

No, that isn't quite accurate. Yes, it is possible but code that enables DFS and DVS started in 2.6.32 (I think) and so we don't have it until it is either back ported to .27 or the entire Pandora specific driver set is moved forward to the latest kernel. Then we can use it like the N900 does which will create even more battery time.

Special Pandoras:

We will just be using a local artist, I might even make some stencils myself.

These units will be collectors items to celebrate the launch of the Pandora. We decided it was something we should do (as many other consoles have done too).

We will keep a list of who bought them, sign them, and put a custom ID sticker inside the unit to show it's a real special edition model.

There will probably be 5 designs, so 20 of each design will be made, making the units even rarer.

The money raised will go to our assembly costs in the UK (food, accommodation, equipment, flights etc.)

We have not decided on a price yet, but it won't be $1500 that's for sure!

Just wanted to confirm that the special edition Pandoras will be shipped last.

Painting will happen once we have the rest of the cases while we are assembling (since it's not us who ara painting the cases).


NO one gets further in the Queue. I remember that someone offered me 300 EUR extra money a while ago to go up in the queue - and I disagreed.

Clock Speed-

Okay. It's really easy, actually.
We assure that ALL Pandoras do run at least with 600MHz and most even higher.
That's what 600+ means.

However, it still doesn't make sense using a higher default clock if the OS runs fine with a lower one. It wouldn't make things faster but eat more battery.

Also, if you buy a 400W PC Power Supply, that doesn't mean it always eats 400W.
It just says it can provide a MAXIMUM of 400W.
It wouldn't make sense if it would always eat up 400W.
And it's the same here: It can do at least 600 MHz, probably more. But it doesn't mean it necessarily always have to run at that speed.

BTW: If you buy a car that can do an advertised speed of 200km/h, do you ALWAYS intend to drive full speed?

Case Shipment-

12 Cartons with 207kgs alltogether are ready. The flight they will take (they need to be transported to the airport first) will be on Monday.
Yay! Hopefully no lie (though they never told us any number of packages with weight before, so I doubt it), but we'll know for sure as soon as we really get the tracking number from UPS (which, as said, did take a few days in China last time).

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Official Blog: 12 Packages 207Kg

12 packages, 207kg.


That's the weight of the packages fully packaged up with painted cases (unless our friends lied to us) - and getting the plane to UK on Monday. Yay!
We'll probably get a tracking number on Monday (it took two days the last time we got a shipment from China), then we can be sure!

Where's the rest of them parts?

The batteries just got custom clearance, and will probably arrive on Monday.
700 boards are there, they have the nubs already soldered on. Another 800 boards are already populated.
The rest of the nubs are in Texas, as they are directly soldered on during population.

4000 LCDs are there. 4000 stickers are there.
10.000 speakers are there. 4000 WiFi Antennas are there.
5.000 Quick Start Manuals are in UK and also will arrive on Monday.

All the other needed small parts are there.

Keymats will arrive together with the cases... well, and that's all there is. Time to start assembly. Yay!


The OS and some software

The OS is also coming along. We installed an image to the NAND a week ago - it runs well and rock solid so far.
I tried quite a few things to break it - hard reset while it was running quite a few times, etc.
The OS survived. The only thing I managed to do was making the bootup hang when I did four Hard Resets while booting in a row - guess a hardware driver hang. Was solved by powering off and reboot again - and still the filesystem was fine and intact.

Looking good here. Bootup is still a bit slow (55 Seconds at the moment), but that's something we surely try to improve in the near future. As a test, I simply removed some services that won't be needed AFAIK and got a booting time of 33 seconds. It won't make it in the first release (as we don't have time to test if my removed scripts REALLY don't break anything!), but it's a nice view of what can be done. Switching to Upstart (a tool which enhances bootup by running scripts parallel instead of serial) will also make a difference. Stay tuned for OS updates!

Power Management has become better. The WiFi driver now supports power management - so with the standard OS settings, 7 hours with WiFi are possible. Without WiFi, it goes up to 13 hours at the moment.

For a basic OS, this is all pretty advanced already. There will surely be some settings that can be enhanced (i.e. Browser layout, MIME types, etc.), but we'll wait for suggestions from you guys and will include the best settings in future firmware versions.

Also, in case you want to meddle around and break the OS (you should only do so on the SD Card, but some probably still mess around with the NAND I guess )
I will create a recovery bootsystem which allows you to restore the config files on your system or backup your home-directory.
Aditionally, notaz created a flasher (it's the same one we use to install the OS for the first time). With that, you can copy some files on your SD Card and restore the image completely (don't do this too often though, it will wear out the NAND over time )

Various devs (me too, though I don't think you can call me dev) are packaging up games, apps and emulators that are ported so far.
We have Stella, Hatari, UAE4ALL, DOSBox, Vice, Colem, Exaile, Free Heroes 2, Commander Genius, Angry Drunken Dwarfs, BattleJewels, Battle for Wesnoth, Super Mario War, C-Dogs, Pandora Panic!, Quake 2, etc. and more coming up...

Some stuff needs more work (notaz wants to improve PicoDrive more before Pandora release, UAE4ALL is just a direct port of the GP2X Version, runs fullspeed Amiga 500 games, but is not as compatible, PSX and N64 also need more work), but I guess that stuff will keep you busy for a while.

MAJOR thanks again to ALL the devs who have helped us with the OS - despite them having few time... THANKS!

I also suspect there are some devs among the preorderers who also like to port some games (or code their own ones).

I can't await to see what's coming from you guys - I'm sure it will be worth all the trouble we went through.

No emulators pre-installed

There will definately NO emulators installed as default on the Pandora.

1. The Pandora is not a pure emulator device. Emulators are apps like games. Not every user wants to use up the NAND space with tons of emulators.

2. Including emulators will surely lead to the big companies trying to stop the Pandora. Definately.

3. Emulators will probably see a lot of updates - which is done easier with PNDs than always upgrading the OS on the NAND...

4. Customs stopped importing the Dingoo in Germany (I know at least one case) because it's a clone of Nintendo products. It can play Nintendo roms out of the box and looks similar. My guess is that without the emulators, it wouldn't be handled as a clone.

App-store ratings:

I've got that covered already. You will see what happens when software is updated.

I think I'm going to use a percent but also use the thumbs up and down to calculate it.

This will allow niche software to compete in the rankings with hugely popular things like an N64 emu.

Because if there is just a digg style count up, we all know what will be sitting at the top and drowning out the actual original software.

 

[peca]

You know it's funny when some people give a backhanded complement when they post.
Edit: Side note, we should know if the cases shipped as planned. It is well past business time Monday there.

They are, should arrive on Wednesday.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Craigix Twitter:

Finally, the cases should arrive in Newcastle tomorrow!

The Arrival of the Cases:

I'm hoping they will be though customs and delivered by friday so I can do some photos and video of everything here.

Assembly:

Yep, this is it, building will start next week, probably on Wednesday.

We're hoping we can send out 16 on the first day.

Webcam:

Yes, I want to set up a live webcam. However, as I'm the one doing it, it won't go online before I'm there
I'll probably arrive 22nd or 23rd of May to join the fun

Voltage control:

His remark that they've removed the voltage scaling because it kernel panics kind of disturbs me just a little bit.

That's not what I meant. It panics because it is running on newer hardware and it is the old, very first kernel to ever touch Pandora. It was the only one to ever have voltage control. It requires the code to be modified to match newer board revisions and I don't know where to look and didn't spend any time trying to find out. There were major design changes from rev1 to rev2.

It crashes while the board is booting and when it gets to the UART init step (even though UART is already working from the uboot setup). You don't even get a chance to change the voltage.

Movie Battery Life:

The Pandora can play movies for about 14 hours on one charge.

Various Craigix Twitter Updates: (Read from bottom --> up)

# I'm sure you will all be delighted to know youtube is letting me upload again.

# I think youtube is broken at the moment. No video until it starts working again.

# Tried to upload the video twice. Trying again.

# I've made some video, probably won't have time to post it until later tonight

# Hall looking tidy, building long bench down the middle from an old kitchen.

# Building a production line and organising several tons of parts today. I will do a video when it's a bit more tidy (this afternoon).

# I know you want photos but I want, well, sleep. I'm planning video tomorrow. Let's drink to the good times, red wine, going to my head...

# Thanks everyone for the kind words, we have done it, now we just have to build them! Wow, this was a tough project.

# Michael arrives here on Wednesday morning, which means a 4:30am start for me! Arrghh!

# I built a MP Pandora and all went well. This should be an interesting week to come

# I'm happy with the cases and all the parts are here. Now it's going to take a weekend to just organise all this kit. (still no gp32x here)

# I now have the cases.

# Off to pickup the Pandora shipment from the airport this afternoon!

# Last night, after a long day, I was in bed reading, I realised I should get some sleep when I clicked the top of the page to change the URL.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Pandora Delivery Video:
.

Board Testing/Dead Pixels

Every board is completely tested and given a 24-48 hour burn in test before being shipped to Craig. It's part of the reason why they aren't making them as fast as they first promised. They are trying to help us guarantee a 100% success rate other than damage that could happen in shipping or during assembly (hopefully not). It is costing us more money this way but hopefully it works out in the long run with as close to zero RMAs as possible.

The assembler plus one dedicated engineer at TI who stuck with us through the entire process worked to create a test jig and automation software to provide a simple test procedure requiring minimal human interaction. The boards lock into the jig and have a bed of nails setup to test many different points on the board while live. They are still working on reducing the human interaction which is also why boards are not being delivered as quickly as first expected.

Basically, all features of the board are tested before shipping, including the pads that the game buttons and keypad hits (via bed of nails). All we have to do is make sure the LCDs work and that the keymat buttons work, both of which are part of Notaz's flash loader software.

As for dead pixels, replacing a unit for a single dead pixel is unrealistic. Our position on the failure limitations must match that of the LCD manufacturer because any panels we have to replace need to go back to be replaced by them too. I don't know what the specific criteria is as I've never talked to that company directly and hopefully Craig has those details.

Craigix Twitter:

ICP site fixed. Volcano ash cloud needs to clear by Wednesday or Pandora people are going to be delayed, will still do everything we can...

For all the people asking about the cases - they are superb. It was worth rejecting all the previous ones. We now have absolute top quality.

 

[Lafazar]

So, jetzt ists fix: Ich bin ab Montag in england.
Alle anderen Flüge hätten über 100 Euro mehr gekostet... aber die anderen werkeln schon vorher dran

http://forum.gp2x.de/viewtopic.php?p=123432#p123432

So, now it's fixed: I will be in England starting on Monday.
All other flights would have cost more than 100€ Euro more... but the others will work on it before that

 

[Alpha2]

Via Twitter:

Craigix Really stressed day today, then got to drive to Manchester at 4am to pick up Michael. Let's hope the volcano isn't up to its old tricks.

Craigix Going to try to get some sleep now. Big day tomorrow. Michael is flying from Toronto, so track the flight to Manchester if you're bored!

 

[Lafazar]

Hello from Toronto.
by MWeston May 18, 2010 at 5:32 pm

http://pandorapress.net/2010/05/18/is-your-delivery-address-correct/comment-page-1/#comment-14305

Hello from Craig's place.

We've been going through the boxes and making sure it's all here and it looks good. Everything does look good to go so we can start setting up right away.
by MWeston May 19, 2010 at 7:56 am

http://pandorapress.net/2010/05/18/is-your-delivery-address-correct/comment-page-1/#comment-14353

posting from a mp pandora!
by craigix May 19, 2010 at 12:48 pm

http://pandorapress.net/2010/05/19/its-assembly-day/comment-page-1/#comment-14434

 

[Qwertyuiop]

Craigix Twitter:

Today is going to be a long day. Hoping to have some photos late in the day.

 

[Jourdy288]

http://twitter.com/Craigix/status/14370120063

[quote name ='Craigix']Just waiting to flash the 1.0 FW on the first units.[/quote]