The 1000-traces-puzzle

[EvilDragon]

@EvilDragon how come there is a move to all plastic keys? The original silicon coated ones sound like they would have a much better feeling.

We never had silicon coated ones. The keymat itself was always silicon.

The old version had a silicon mat where the plastic caps were printed with the label from below and then put into the keymat, surrounded by silicon.

This was nice - however, to achieve a proper stability in production (you don't want many tears, etc. within the mat), the silicon surrounding the plastic keys would've need to be 1 mm thick.

1 mm on each side is a lot - the plastic key would've had a size of 3x6mm, surrounded by 1mm transparent silicon on each side.

This would've made the printable area very small (about 2,8mm x 5,8mm) and when turning on the backlight, the whole silicon surround would be lit... so the keymat backlight would've more been a torch than a backlight for the labels...

 

[rygD]

Tobad I can't use your mobile service being in the USA. I use google Fi which uses t-mobile/sprint towers simultaneously. So I don't even know if I can use a different service or not with sim cards. Thats no biggy though because wifi-sharing.

Do we even know if we will get a cell modem that works in the US?

 

[WizardStan]

Do we even know if we will get a cell modem that works in the US?

EvilDragon has been silent as to whether he'll manufacture it with different PLS8 chips or if he'll only support the PLS8-E and North American customers don't get 4G.When he was only going to support 3G he could have used the PHS8-P which covered pretty much everywhere, but there's no "world" equivalent of the LTE chip, unfortunately.

Of course, the third option is to offer PHS8-P for anyone who wants it (for a cost) and PLS8-E for European customers who don't mind paying a little more for 4G. The deal he got was for an LTE data plan so it wouldn't make sense to not offer at least the PLS8-E for European customers.

Unfortunately the PHS8-P/US is useless to me, my carrier has no 3G support so I'd be sad.

 

[rygD]

Do we even know if we will get a cell modem that works in the US?

EvilDragon has been silent as to whether he'll manufacture it with different PLS8 chips or if he'll only support the PLS8-E and North American customers don't get 4G.
When he was only going to support 3G he could have used the PHS8-P which covered pretty much everywhere, but there's no "world" equivalent of the LTE chip, unfortunately.


Of course, the third option is to offer PHS8-P for anyone who wants it (for a cost) and PLS8-E for European customers who don't mind paying a little more for 4G. The deal he got was for an LTE data plan so it wouldn't make sense to not offer at least the PLS8-E for European customers.


Unfortunately the PHS8-P/US is useless to me, my carrier has no 3G support so I'd be sad.

I have a strong feeling some of us will be sad regardless of what is decided.  I would prefer ED go with what makes sense for himself and as many people as he can.  I will consider USB options if everything seems to be working well.  In other words, I won't be buying a bunch of stuff from a bunch of companies to try to find something that works, I will wit for others to try it with their preferred carrier and see if it will work for me.  There are only 2 I would go with right now, and one is an MVNO (and probably won't work for this).  T-Mobile is the other company, and I might take a look at what they offer, and coverage here.  Unlike some, my main concern is calls and text messages, not data, so it isn't that important to me.  It would be really nice though.  There are a few things I have been looking at for a while in case Pyra can't meet my needs in those areas.

Thanks for verifying that we still don't know.  It may be best to take care of the people in Euro-land and skip us/US (I can't recall what parts of NA are have it like the US, or if you are north or south of the border) to avoid raising the cost for everyone.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

I only care about it being able to SMS, MMS, and phone calls. I'd be happy with PHS-8. I just hope I get a mobile chip that works in US. I'll be really upset otherwise.

 

[Swordfish II]

I will preorder, came here from the neo900 project which I won't get.... I will get the pyra:


Dedicated community constantly updating and porting (notaz, ptitseb, ED, etc)


Made it through an absolute fiasco with Craig, AND helped out those that got shafted


A Pyra OS in development and able to be tested (neo900 doesn't know what is going on).


ED you are a class act, and I fully trust you and the community to solve any problems

 

[jp10558]

So for those of us who supposedly have a credit from the ICP2 at Ithic.com - how will pre-orders etc work? Do we have to wait for full release?

 

[Jumpman]

So for those of us who supposedly have a credit from the ICP2 at Ithic.com - how will pre-orders etc work? Do we have to wait for full release?

Mmmmm, that's an interesting question, I was going to ask myself. Maybe LINK can chime in on how that will work? I'm guessing he will be getting qty at release, at least enough to cover ICP2 backers, as well as some extra. Hopefully production is way better than the Pandora was, and none of us will have to wait to long after the release for Pyra's to start showing up any and everywhere.

Chris

 

[fusion_power]

I wonder if this little (and complex) CPU-PCB could be used for other pyra-compatible devices. Imagine some Pyra-Tablet that could be offered compared cheap without the CPU SOC if you own an normal Pyra. You could ust remove the PCB and put it int the Tablet.

 

[ZXDunny]

I'm leaning towards a pre-order. BUT I recall very vividly the stupendous cockup that was the Pandora pre-order, so I'll likely not put my money down until there's stock to sell.

This could all very easily head south again, and I'm wary of that.

D.

 

[EvilDragon]

I wonder if this little (and complex) CPU-PCB could be used for other pyra-compatible devices. Imagine some Pyra-Tablet that could be offered compared cheap without the CPU SOC if you own an normal Pyra. You could ust remove the PCB and put it int the Tablet.

Yes. The specs will be fully open, so anyone could produce CPU-PCBs or use existing CPU-PCBs for any other product.

How likely that is is another question though

 

[gadgetoid]

Interested to see the BOM and some of the part definitions that will go into the CPU PCB- I'm guessing there's a BGA or two, which might send me running for the hills! Although we're getting a new stencil printer and that, coupled with a good quality stencil, should mean we can do BGA and all sorts of fiddley stuff we've had trouble with before.

 

[fusion_power]

I wonder if this little (and complex) CPU-PCB could be used for other pyra-compatible devices. Imagine some Pyra-Tablet that could be offered compared cheap without the CPU SOC if you own an normal Pyra. You could ust remove the PCB and put it int the Tablet.

Yes. The specs will be fully open, so anyone could produce CPU-PCBs or use existing CPU-PCBs for any other product.

How likely that is is another question though

Well, you could ask third party companies what they think about that concept. Maybe there is one that searchs exactly for this kind of stuff. I mean one company has an SOC but no device ready, they could make alternative CPU boards for the Pyra. Or another company needs an SoC "module" for their tablet device, they could use the existing one from the Pyra.Of course this may be unlikely but well, It should not hurt to visit the Business Area of the upcoming GamesCom to show some business people the Pyra concept, right?

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Stupid question:  If Pyra design is open, does this mean that anyone could create a Pyra without paying Ed?  If it's true, that would suck as Ed and company have done all the hard work.  How does this openness work?

 

[ible]

it would be prohibitive, cost-wise, to produce your own pyra.  someone can come along and try to create a bunch (lower the cost per pyra), but then they'll have to figure out how to market and sell them to people, when already the niche buyers are here and know about ED's pyra .

 

[ReactorScram]

I wonder if it's a copyleft license, where anyone who makes a custom Pyra has to release freely any modifications they made.

 

[CrazyIvan]

I wonder if this little (and complex) CPU-PCB could be used for other pyra-compatible devices. Imagine some Pyra-Tablet that could be offered compared cheap without the CPU SOC if you own an normal Pyra. You could ust remove the PCB and put it int the Tablet.

Pyra tablet would be THICK. Anyone wants thick low power tablet nowadays?Pyra CPU PCB is meant to be mounted atop main board, it has two connectors on each side perpendicuar to the board plane. Had it one-sided planar connector like M.2 the tablet would be at least feasible.

The difference between a tablet and a pyra is that a tablet have a lot of "horizontal" space but not much "vertical" one but pyra (and similar devices like shield 1 for example) have much more

"vertical" space than an average tablet while lacking "horizontal" one.

 

[ekianjo]

Stupid question:  If Pyra design is open, does this mean that anyone could create a Pyra without paying Ed?  If it's true, that would suck as Ed and company have done all the hard work.  How does this openness work?

You don't make hardware without money, that's how it works. 

 

[Haraldur]

I wonder if this little (and complex) CPU-PCB could be used for other pyra-compatible devices. Imagine some Pyra-Tablet that could be offered compared cheap without the CPU SOC if you own an normal Pyra. You could ust remove the PCB and put it int the Tablet.

Yes. The specs will be fully open, so anyone could produce CPU-PCBs or use existing CPU-PCBs for any other product.

How likely that is is another question though

Roughly how difficult is it to produce just a CPU-PCB, compared to producing the entire Pyra, a mobile-phone or a PC motherboard? How difficult would it be for a clueless person, wanting to start a business, to do this? What about someone WITH a clue?

Since I am naive and cannot understand the appeal of touch-screen-only smartphones and would think that the Pyra would be the answer, universally, to every person's mobile computing needs, I cannot help but imagine a scenario with multiple competing CPU-PCB manufacturers, with Pyra owners upgrading every couple of years for more software to run at full-speed (or at all, in the case of x86/_64 software; at the least until PCSX2 works well).

 

[hns]

I wonder if this little (and complex) CPU-PCB could be used for other pyra-compatible devices. Imagine some Pyra-Tablet that could be offered compared cheap without the CPU SOC if you own an normal Pyra. You could ust remove the PCB and put it int the Tablet.

There is a plan to make the OMAP5 CPU boards available separately (with technical support to build a tablet around it) through http://shop.goldelico.com. But before this happens, it must work perfectly and be in mass production for the Pyra.